


sing me like a choir

by princessoftheworlds



Series: drape me in your warmth [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Relationships, Episode: The Lives of Captain Jack Vol. 1: Month 25, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mortal Jack Harkness, Time Agent Jack Harkness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: Here, one moment changes, and that makes all the difference. (But it also makes no difference at all.)Lisa Hallett dies at the Battle of Canary Wharf. Ianto Jones, Yvonne Hartman’s PA, is left the highest-ranking Torchwood operative standing. He picks up the broken pieces of his life and works with UNIT for a few years.Jack Harkness never meets the Doctor. He never becomes a fixed point of time and space. He isn’t there to take over Torchwood Three when Alex Hopkins shoots his team and then himself.So when Ianto Jones moves back home to Cardiff, nothing stops him from re-establishing the Torchwood Institute where in one lifetime, Torchwood Three should have stood.Javic Thane and Ianto Jones were never meant to meet, but that won't stop them from falling for each other. A love story where even time and space couldn't keep two men apart.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: drape me in your warmth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184954
Comments: 275
Kudos: 120
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transjackianto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjackianto/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto Jones encounters Javic Thane in a bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Kai! I hope this makes you feel a bit better, whenever you get to read it! You'd asked for something where young, mortal Jack meets Ianto, and after waffling through a few prompts, I decided to return to a fic you'd help inspire back in April that I'm continuing now.
> 
> This is going to be a multichaptered fic of which a few chapters have already been written; I will be posting every Friday give or take a few weeks where I might have exams. Also, although I have a rough roadmap for this fic, I don't entirely have a chapter-to-chapter plan, so if there's anything you wish to see, feel free to ask! This should be at least 10 chapters, maybe at most 20; I'm not entirely sure yet.
> 
> Mind that tags. This will be following the Big Finish audio Month 25 from the Lives of Captain Jack Vol. 1 quite closely. So if you don't want to get spoiled, I would advise being careful.
> 
> (This knocks out the "kink/sex talk/innuendo" square for the Torchwood Fan Fest Bingo Fest for fairly obvious reasons!)
> 
> Title's from the Troye Sivan song "Bite," which ironically Kai introduced me to!

Every love story is composed of individuals, and this love story is composed of three. We’ll call them Lisa Hallett, Ianto Jones, and Jack Harkness.

It’s fairly simple. Ianto Jones moves to London. Ianto Jones eventually gets a job at Torchwood One. Ianto Jones meets Lisa Hallett; they fall in love. Canary Wharf happens, and Lisa is converted into a Cyberwoman. Ianto hides her in Jack Harkness’s basement. He doesn’t count on her breaking loose and murdering two innocent people before dying herself; he also most certainly doesn’t count on falling for Jack. Jack leaves. He comes back, for Ianto. They fall in love, but Torchwood and Jack’s past catches up to them. Ianto dies. And Jack goes on living in grief, as he always does.

_Except,_ this is not that version.

Here, one moment changes, and that makes all the difference. (But it also makes no difference at all.)

Lisa Hallett dies at the Battle of Canary Wharf. Ianto Jones, Yvonne Hartman’s PA, is left the highest-ranking Torchwood operative standing. He picks up the broken pieces of his life and works with UNIT for a few years. 

Jack Harkness never meets the Doctor. He never becomes a fixed point of time and space. He isn’t there to take over Torchwood Three when Alex Hopkins shoots his team and then himself.

So when Ianto Jones moves back home to Cardiff, nothing stops him from re-establishing the Torchwood Institute where in one lifetime, Torchwood Three should have stood.

* * *

Ianto Jones is sitting at his desk thumbing over paperwork, his perfectly-brewed cup of coffee pointedly pushed several inches away from his files, when his comm buzzes. 

“ _Boss?_ ” says Donna Noble, his very brash but also very efficient PA. “ _Alien Acquisitions flagged traces of artron energy near Newport._ ”

Ianto hums. “A time-traveller near Newport, you say? And you’re sure it’s not the Doctor?” He drums his fingers against his desk. “A surprise visit sounds like something they would do.”

“ _A surprise visit_ ?” Donna snorts. “ _Maybe, but they wouldn't know the meaning of subtlety if it hit them over the head. If they were visiting, a TARDIS would be materializing in your office right this minute._ ”

Based on every incarnation of the alien Ianto’s met, that sounds about right. He gives his file one last glance before placing it neatly on the stack on the corner of his desk. He stands, shrugs on his suit jacket, and impulsively grabs his gun. “Tell them I’ll be coming with.”

“ _Got it, boss_!”

As the director of the Torchwood Institute, most specifically Torchwood Cardiff, Ianto doesn’t really tend to lower-priority field runs anymore, but time-travellers pop by so infrequently nowadays that he’s interested in seeing who it is.

* * *

Ah, twenty-first century Earth. What a time.

These humans may be his primitive ancestors, but Javic Thane has to give them credit for their ability to produce such cheap alcohol that will get one blinding-drunk but will taste like absolute swill. Across all of time and all of space, and Javic has yet to encounter liquor like that of twenty-first century Earth. Not even hypervodka can hold a candle to it.

Another perk of twenty-first century Earth is the pretty people and their revealing clothing - although Javic can see how spending more than a week here in this dreary dump called Cardiff would bore him; he’s only here for a holiday away from the Time Agency. Fabrics as outdated as polyester, denim, silk. And the styles. In Javic’s home time of the fifty-first century, everything these pretty people are wearing would be far too old to even be considered _vintage_.

Still, Javic can appreciate the sights. Denim shorts that reveal lithe, sleek legs. Low-cut or strappy tops that showcase ample cleavage. Thin cotton shirts that cling to heavily-muscled torsos. Trousers that strain over impressive asses.

Javic could spend a week in this nightclub alone. 

He continues sipping his tequila and waves to a petite redhead in a lacy dress who’s been making eyes at him for the last ten minutes. Maybe later he can entice her into partaking in the archaic tradition of body shots, he muses.

As he watches the pretty people dance and mingle under the colorful lights, he becomes aware of a new presence taking a seat to his right. Instinct causes him to turn to the new arrival, and when he does, he’s so glad he did.

The man looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties and is incredibly _hot_. Like, Javic isn’t shy about his own looks - if you’ve got it, flaunt it, but this man could take him for a lap in the park. (Or just take him; Javic’s starting to drool already.) Upturned, snub nose. Angled jaw mostly hidden by a neatly-trimmed beard. Crystalline blue eyes. Sharp cheekbones that Javic envies. Dark eyebrows. Hair that’s mostly dark but starting to grey to an attractive silver. A well-muscled body hidden by an expensive, dark wool suit with a navy dress shirt and striped tie. 

Well, _hello_. He had been looking to fuck someone tonight, but now he’s wondering if he can convince this man to take him home and fuck him instead. 

Javic props an arm on the sticky bar and leans closer, fixing the man with heavily-lidded eyes and a charming smile that always works wonders for him. “Can I buy you a drink?” he drawls. “I’m Javic Thane by the way.”

The man turns his head to stare intently at Javic, and those flat lips curve into an amused smile, one dark eyebrow slanting curiously. “Ianto Jones,” he replies in a soft yet throaty baritone, tinged with the musicality of the local accent. “And it depends. Can you tell what you’re doing in twenty-first century Cardiff?”

“ _Ianto Jones_ ,” Javic tries, the unfamiliar syllables tripping like drunken dancers over his tongue as he butchers the name. Unflinchingly, he leans closer until his elbow is nearly brushing Ianto’s hand. “See, that’s more of a third date question,” he replies, smile only widening, “and I was hoping that this night would end in your bed _before_ our first date.” He drums his fingers against the wood of the bar. 

There’s a sonic blaster tucked under this leather jacket he “borrowed” to fit into the century. With extra batteries. There’s a slimmer model strapped to his left ankle, under his jeans. Not to mention the knives stowed in these brown boots that he’s really taken a liking to. A couple of grenades, his usual tube of paralyzing lip gloss, and a pair of brass knuckles that would fit more into the twentieth century, but he really adores them. He’s left the butt plug gun behind, of course; he’s still on vacation, and explaining that to his conquests...just no.

He could take out the entire nightclub if necessary, but that would only piss Maglin Shank and the rest of his Time Agency superiors off more, especially once they found out about his illicit vacation. Well...he could live with that, but currently, Ianto Jones is too pretty to die, especially with how messy this could get.

Ianto must have noticed his attention wandering: “Don’t even think about using that vortex manipulator of yours,” he rebukes, and Javic stills the fingers that had started twitching towards his wrist. “It wasn’t too hard to cancel out with a temporal flux capacitor.” A beat. “So you could either come quietly or…” He shrugs.

“I definitely don’t _come quietly_ ,” replies Javic, smirking. He trails gentle fingers up Ianto’s sleeved arm, feeling well-defined muscle. His cock stirs. “You could find out if you want.”

Despite Ianto’s appreciative looks earlier, now he only rolls his eyes. “I’m asking politely, Mr. Thane.” He gestures towards the door.

Javic leers at Ianto Jones but follows him out of the nightclub nonetheless.

* * *

“If you wanted to try bondage, we could have negotiated this in the bar,” Javic hollers at the blinking red light in the corner of the interrogation room where he knows the camera to be. He rolls his eyes. Twenty-first century surveillance tech...so _clunky._ “I would have liked a safe word at least.” 

He rattles his arms and legs against the heavy cuffs that bolt his wrists and ankles to this uncomfortable chair. If he had even one of his tools on him, he could have probably freed himself, but he’s been stripped bare of all of his weapons, including his vortex manipulator. He takes offense at that; joke’s on him for falling for another pretty face again.

Ianto Jones had disappeared pretty suddenly after he and Javic exited the bar, leaving Javic in the very capable and very indelicate hands of several armed guards. Javic had been searched, blindfolded, and dragged into one of those ghastly, environment-destroying cars before - eventually - being unceremoniously dumped in this interrogation room.

As interrogation rooms go, however, it’s not the worst Javic has been in. Cement walls and floors, both likely reinforced, with a blinking camera in the corner - and likely several more hidden where he can’t sense them. As he would have expected from surviving twenty-first century films, there is no one-way mirror or a disconcerting shiny metal table where his interrogator can sit. 

Who could have taken him? Ianto, who certainly appeared in charge, had been dressed in too fine a flattering suit to be an underpaid government type. The military, perhaps? But the weapons appeared too advanced, and Ianto knew about his vortex manipulator. And as far as Javic knows as a Time Agent, only a few organizations would have access to technology like a temporal flux capacitor - either UNIT or Torchwood.

Javic doesn’t have to wait long to find out, however, as with a quiet _hiss,_ a portion of the cement wall nearest him slides apart to form a doorway. Ianto Jones steps through, straightening the sleeves of his suit.

“I trust you found your journey here to be pleasant,” he says nonchalantly to Javic.

In response, Javic leers at him, taking in the full pretty picture he wasn’t able to while seated in the bar. That suit really is flattering, form-fitting, and he wouldn’t mind stripping it off Ianto with his teeth. 

“I don’t mind when things get rough,” purrs Javic, spreading his legs as far as the cuffs will allow him to go, placing his denim-encased bulge on display. Ianto’s eyes flicker downwards, and Javic feels a spike of triumph run through him. “But I think I would have preferred you over your minions.”

Striding forward, Ianto shrugs. “Lucky for you then. I’m the one interrogating you.” A beat. “Welcome to the Torchwood Institute.” Noticing the slight twitch in Javic’s expression: “So you’ve heard of us. I’m Director Jones, but you can call me Ianto.” He crosses his arms over that broad chest, muscles flexing in a way that has Javic on the verge of drooling. “Do I get the pleasure of a complete introduction?”

Javic dips his head formally. “Javic Thane, Time Agent.”

Thick dark eyebrows knit together. “Time Agent? Wow. We don’t get too many of you in this decade.” He gives Javic another assessing glance that causes Javic to suppress a shiver. Ianto Jones is really too pretty for his own good. “I guess that explains your weapons and the vortex manipulator.”

“Speaking of which,” cuts in Javic, “I would really like that back.” He hopes they aren’t dismantling it in a lab somewhere in this building.

Ianto circles closer, leaning against the cement wall to Javic’s left. “Why don’t you help me out by answering a few of my questions first?”

Of course. Javic barely manages _not_ to roll his eyes. “You have me exactly where you want me,” he replies, jangling his hands in the cuffs to illustrate just how helpless they have him. “Ask away.”

“What are you doing in this century? In Cardiff no less?” 

“I am on vacation,” explains Javic, stretching out his legs with a quiet hiss. “I like the alcohol in this century. And this city is nothing special. I’ve already been to London this decade.” He shrugs as much as the cuffs will allow him to. “I figured the Rift would maybe spice things up a bit.” When those piercing eyes narrow at him: “For fuck’s sake.” He knows he sounds a bit aggravated, but he doesn’t care. “I don’t have anything against you humans. I just wanted to party and fuck some people.”

“Eloquent,” remarks Ianto sarcastically. He settles more comfortably against the wall, crossing his legs at the ankles, looking every bit a human cover model. Even in a fifty-first century crowd, Javic thinks Ianto would stand out to him.

“Well, what else do you expect?” retorts Javic. “That I would want to tear a hole in the spacetime continuum by fucking with your Rift?” Ianto’s expression doesn’t falter. “ _Really?_ How many times has that happened?”

“Too many times to count,” Ianto says, tone grave. A shadow passes over his face but is gone as soon as it appears.

Javic shakes his head. “Well, bully for you. I’m not stupid enough to do that, knowing that the ramifications could possibly erase me from existence.Why would I do anything that risks denying the universe this pretty face?” He smirks, cocking his head.

Ianto rolls his eyes. “Yes, that would be truly devastating.” Yet his eyes do retain a flicker of interest as they rove over Javic again. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones is a business-first, please-later kind of guy. He straightens up, arms dropping back down, before turning to the camera, calling, “Let him out. Seems Mr. Thane is only guilty of taking an illicit vacation from the Time Agency.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Javic scowls. “How could you possibly know that?”

Facing him again, Ianto flashes him a wry grin. “I’m the director of Torchwood, Mr. Thane. I know enough to know that if you wanted your little trip to be noticed, you would have chosen another bar.” As he exits the interrogation room, he nods at Javic. “Do look me up before you return to your home time, whenever that is. I wouldn’t mind a chat.”

From Ianto’s tone, Javic gets the feeling that the chat he wants involves a lot more sweating and snogging than talking. That is enough to keep him grinning smarmily as the same armed guards that had led him to this room escort him out, wait until he retrieves and restashes his many weapons, and straps his vortex manipulator back onto his wrist.

Then they basically shove him out the sleek double doors of the Torchwood Institute skyscraper and into the busy Roald Dahl Plass. Javic flashes passerby a charming smile that they find themselves returning as he swaggers across the Plass and drops down on a bench.

He’s determined to see Ianto Jones again.

* * *

The universe shifted, Lisa Hallett died at Canary Wharf, and Ianto Jones’s love turned to grief. 

The universe shifted, Jack Harkness never met the Doctor, and Torchwood Three crumpled with Alex Hopkins.

The universe shifted. Javic Thane and Ianto Jones are at completely different points in their lives. Javic’s was forgotten; Ianto’s should have never existed. Yet they’ve had an impossible meeting, and this is that story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the day, Ianto finds that Javic Thane did not leave Cardiff as immediately as he would have expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments so far! Here is Chapter 2, featuring what many of us - okay, really only Estelle that I remember - asked for. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also dedicated to Bel. I hope your move goes smoothly!)

“Donna,” Ianto says politely as he pokes his head out of his office door to where Donna sits at the beginning of the hallway, “I’ll be going home in a few minutes. I’d suggest you do the same.”

Tossing waves of bright red hair over her shoulder, Donna snorts. “As if I was going to stay any longer than I had to, Ianto,” she teases, packing her lunch and a few other trinkets into her purse. “I’m meeting the girls for drinks at our local.” She lifts her gaze towards Ianto. “You got any plans?”

Ianto tenses briefly, expecting a playful remark about Javic Thane, but it seems that rumor of the handsome Time Agent hasn’t reached the personal assistants of Torchwood yet. Hopefully, it hasn’t spread far from Alien Acqusitions, but knowing the Torchwood gossip mill, he truly doubts that. Finally: “Nope, no plans.”

“Have a good evening in, then,” Donna tells him. She wanders over and presses a quick kiss to his cheek before ruffling his hair, striding away and laughing as Ianto hisses. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See you tomorrow,” calls Ianto before retreating inside his office. He neatly puts away a few files into his briefcase, compulsively straightening the remaining ones on his desk, checks the gun in the holster hidden by his suit jacket, and tugs at his sleeves. He locks his office door behind him, triple-checks the security panel, and then waits briefly for the elevator.

Exiting the elevator on the ground floor, Ianto nods to the receptionist - Maya, he knows their name to be; like Yvonne, he’s made it a point to know all his employees by name - and receives a “Good night, Mr. Jones!” in reply. He chuckles slightly to himself. He’s insisted that everyone call him Ianto, but not everyone does, making him feel old.

Then again, he supposes, at thirty-seven, he is getting up there in age. 

The security guard - Alan - smiles at him as he checks Ianto’s identification before letting him through, and then Ianto emerges from the bizarre wonderfulness of the Torchwood Institue to the everyday evening life of Cardiff.

People are milling all about the Plass, and Ianto stalks across quickly, beginning the ten-minute walk to his flat. Sometimes he drives, but the weather this morning was quite nice. He ventures a peek to where he knows the abandoned tourist office of Torchwood Three once stood. After the tragedy that struck Torchwood Three - the tragedy they all now knew to be caused by alien-inflicted madness, the office had fallen into despair and was knocked down easily when Ianto, tired of working in the underground Hub, decided to build a new, legitimate base for Torchwood.

The Hub still remains, however, underneath the many feet that tread all over the Plass, housing all the alien artifacts and files Ianto and the board have deemed too dangerous for the rest of Torchwood to know. 

“Hey, Jones!” comes a holler from Ianto’s left, and he suddenly glances over to find Javic Thane lounging on a nearby bench. He looks just as delectable as he did in the bar, just as tempting as he did tied down in the interrogation room, long, muscled legs on full display in his jeans, leather jacket draped over his lap to hide the prominent bulge Ianto knows to be there. His blue eyes twinkle mischeviously as Ianto strides over.

“Mr. Thane,” Ianto greets Javic. “I would have thought you would have been done with twenty-first century Cardiff by now.”

“Javic, please,” the other man insists, rising to his feet. He tucks the leather jacket over his arm, and Ianto resists the urge to flick his eyes downwards. Judging by Javic’s growing smirk, he fails. “And nah, I still wanted a drink. Besides,” - he steps closer to Ianto until Ianto can smell that mysteriously delicious scent that’s been haunting him all day, ghosting fingers near Ianto’s cheek - “you told me to look you up before I left.”

Ianto swallows. “I might know a place or two,” he says hoarsely.

Javic tosses back his head, revealing the strong arch of his neck, and laughs. “I would prefer more... _ private  _ accommodations.” His words end in a sinful murmur. 

It takes a brief minute to bring his breathing back under control and to compose his expression, but Ianto nods, smoothing down his suit and switching his briefcase from his sweaty grip to his dry hand. “Right,” he says finally. “Follow me then.”

His brow furrowing at Ianto’s sudden shift in expression, Javic shrugs and trails behind Ianto.

* * *

“Nice place,” says Javic, whistling, as he enters Ianto’s flat, and Ianto, proud of the effort he put into his home, agrees. 

It is a neat, meticulously arranged, open-concept space. The front door is flanked by a small shoe rack and coat rack, which is where Ianto directs Javic to slip off his boots and hang up his leather jacket. 

Directly opposite the door is a small sitting area - two couches opposing each other, flanked by two armchairs and side tables - and to the side is a fairly large kitchen with an island lined with bar stools and gleaming silver appliances. Everything is done in tones of white with occasional splashes of darker colors and blue.

Three doors pressed against one wall lead respectively to Ianto’s bedroom, office, and bathroom. Large windows throughout the main space overlook Cardiff Bay.

“It’s a pretty view,” Javic comments as he peers out of one said window as Ianto busies himself with the liquor-laden bar cart wedged against a wall. Then he turns and leers at Ianto. “But I’ve seen prettier.”

Ianto rolls his eyes, pouring himself a decent amount of whisky into a crystal decanter from a set Owen bought him for his last birthday. “Some of the other flats in the building have balconies, but I basically have private roof access,” he says before asking, “What’s your poison?” 

  
“Whatever you’re having.” Javic beams as Ianto pours the same whisky in a matching decanter. He strides over and picks it up, sniffing at it. “Smells strong,” he notes.

“Not as strong as your cologne,” replies Ianto, sipping at his whisky, savoring its burn down his throat.

Javic’s brow furrows in amusement, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “I’m not wearing any.”

Now, Ianto’s eyebrows lift in disbelief. “You smell like that  _ naturally? _ ”

A nod. “Fifty-first century pheremones,” says Javic. He drums his fingers around the decanter, leaning against the kitchen counter as he sips his liquor.

“ _ Christ, _ ” Ianto says and downs the rest of his whisky. “Want any more?” He gestures to Javic’s own empty glass, but Javic shakes his head in refusal. Shrugging, Ianto takes both their glasses and places them in the sink. When he turns back, he finds himself crowded against the sink by a smirking Javic. 

“You’re pulling off this whole Time Agent shtick pretty well,” murmurs Javic, tracing a lone finger against Ianto’s jaw. Ianto inhales sharply, lifting his chin so that Javic can slide his entire hand to cup Ianto’s cheek, his thumb roll over Ianto’s soft lips.

“Side effect of being in the same field for the last fifteen years.” Ianto’s tongue darts out to taste the tip of Javic’s finger; Javic hisses, his eyes darkening, and his other hand trails over Ianto’s suit, heading downwards. “I think you’ll find I’m pretty unflappable.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” Javic replies, waggling his eyebrows.

Ianto grabs hold of Javic’s hand just before it verges on slipping between his legs, stroking the sensitive skin between the knuckles briefly. “If you want to take it as one.” Then he slides smoothly from Javic’s grasp, not a hair out of place. 

A shadow of frustration passes over Javic’s face once he realizes that he hasn’t managed to disturb Ianto’s composure, but it’s gone as soon as it appears. “Oh, I most definitely will,” he promises, voice taking on a low, sultry edge.

“Bedroom’s this way,” Ianto says, wrapping a gentle hand around Javic’s wrist. Javic allows himself to be pulled towards the nearest door, which is revealed to be - not that it should come as a surprise - Ianto’s bedroom. 

It’s a wide but fairly sparse space, a large bed with navy bedspread and a pile of pillows pushed against the center of a wall, flanked by two handsome nightstands. A matching dresser is pressed against the opposing wall. As with the living room outside, two large windows usher in a plethora of natural light. 

Ianto yanks Javic inside, pressing him against the wall nearest to the door, which he shuts with a swift kick. He leans in and presses his mouth to Javic’s with an urgency he can feel creeping up into his bones, demanding the other man naked and writhing underneath him. When Javic moans into the kiss, Ianto mercilessly nips at Javic’s lower lip before pulling back.

Javic is loose and pliant in his grip, eyes heavy and half-lided, mouth slick and shiny, and spreads his legs wide until Ianto can press his thigh between them and feel his hardening cock. Ianto’s mouth goes dry at the pretty picture Javic makes. 

“Oh, you’re  _ easy, _ ” Ianto breathes, eyes widening slightly, smirking.

“Guilty as charged,” the other man replies, shrugging. 

“Strip,” Ianto orders as he steps away from Javic. He shrugs off his suit coat, draping it over his arm, before his hands go to neatly unknot his own tie. Hurriedly, Javic strips off his t-shirt to reveal miles of flawless tan skin that ripples over sinewed muscle. Then he shucks off his jeans and tosses them away, stepping before Ianto fully nude. 

“Like what you see?” he teases but fails to get a rise out of Ianto, who unloops his tie from around his neck before undoing the buttons of his dress shirt. 

A few steps to the closet, and Ianto hangs his suit coat, tie, and trousers before placing his shirt into his laundry hamper. When he turns back around, he finds Javic lounging shamelessly on his bed, thighs spread wide as he slowly strokes his cock. There is a bottle of lube by his toe. Odd. Ianto didn’t even hear Javic rummaging through the drawers of his nightstand. 

Ianto rolls his eyes. “You’re an impatient bastard,” he says as he walks over to the bed and gracefully climbs on, shifting forward to straddle Javic who goes down easy as Ianto pushes him into the pillows. Their cocks accidentally brush together, and Ianto hisses at the sudden friction despite the slickness of Javic’s cock. 

Javic reaches a lazy hand into Ianto’s hair to yank him down and capture his lips; they snog messily and desperately like teenagers for a few minutes before Ianto fumbles for the lube. He squirts a decent amount on his fingers and watches Javic’s eyes darken with lust when he realizes Ianto’s actually reaching behind himself. Quickly, Javic fumbles for a condom, swearing quietly as his own lube-slick fingers slip on the foil packet.

It’s been a while since Ianto’s had another man fuck him, so he winces slightly when he slips a finger inside himself, then another. After he’s eased a third finger in besides the others, he curls them expertly against his prostate, sending an explosion of colorful sparks across his vision and causing him to whine softly into Javic’s kiss.

The other man tugs him closer but pulls apart from their kiss to trace his tongue across the delicate shell of Ianto’s ear, laughing when Ianto shivers. “You’re so sensitive,” he whispers, “and you make  _ such lovely noises. _ ”

“Funny,” retorts Ianto, pulling his fingers from his arse and leaving himself achingly empty, “how you think you’re in control here.” He shifts backwards, still straddling Javic’s waist, before rising on his knees and reaching for Javic’s cock. The other man hisses, shoulders pressing against the pillows of Ianto’s bed, as Ianto slowly easies himself onto his length.

When Ianto completely bottoms out on Javic’s cock, he clenches down tightly and watches how Javic’s eyes almost roll back into his head.

“Are you ever going to move?” demands Javic.

“Perhaps,” replies Ianto, but then he lifts himself until only the head of Javic’s cock remains wedged inside him. Then he drops down, both men moaning. He repeats, building up into a smooth and steady rhythm, riding Javic’s cock and periodically bearing down and clenching until the springs of the bed creak.

Javic keeps a bruising grip at Ianto’s hips, but he tosses his head into the pillows, turning to the side to expose a delicious stretch of his neck, moaning uncontrollably. “Fuck,  _ fuck!  _ You’re so goddamned hot.” He inhales sharply, toes curling, as Ianto drops down particularly hard on his cock.

Ianto can feel his control slowly but surely unravelling each time Javic fills him again, an exquisite tension building up his spine, his balls drawing up and tightening as his orgasm approaches. He angles his hips to strike his prostate each time he rises and falls on Javic’s cock, pleasure singing through his veins. 

He groans, open-mouthed, before bending down to snog Javic breathlessly, never faltering in his rhythm. When he makes to pull away, Javic hooks an arm around his neck and keeps him there, lifting a hand from his hip to slide his thumb along Ianto’s jawline before finally cupping his cheek. Ianto leans his face into the touch, his eyes locked onto Javic’s, as he reaches down between them to tug roughly at his own weeping cock.

That’s how Ianto comes with a silent moan, gazing into Javic’s eyes, something fluttering behind his sternum, his release spilling scorchingly hot between them. He clenches down tightly onto Javic’s cock, and Javic accidentally bucks his hips, forcing a strangled moan from Ianto’s throat. Ianto has completely stilled, and so Javic fucks up into him a few times before his back arches, fists curling into the silk sheets of Ianto’s bed, and cries out something indecipherable.

He slumps back onto the bed, panting, and Ianto clambers off of him, shoving Javic over until there’s enough space on the bed for him to lie too. He’ll get up in a moment to clean them both off, but first he needs to catch his breath.

“Was that a challenge enough for you?” he gasps, turning infinitesimally to glance at Javic

Javic smirks. “You’re a special one, Ianto Jones,” he says, “but I don’t think our night’s done yet.”

Their next three rounds prove Javic correct.

* * *

Bright rays of sunlight break into the large bedroom through the slight gap in the curtains, and the man on the bed, naked save for a thin sheet, barely stirs.

_ Pity,  _ thinks Javic as he zips up his jeans before pulling his t-shirt back on.  _ I would have liked a lazy morning makeout session. _

After fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror, he returns briefly to the bedroom to gaze down at the beautiful man sleeping in the bed. “Goodbye, Ianto Jones,” he whispers, leaning down to press a kiss to that pale forehead. 

Javic pads silently out of the room and laces his boots back up. He straightens the sleeves of the leather jacket once he slips it back on. Well, he best be making his move. The coordinates are thumbed into swiftly to his vortex manipulator before he taps the final button.

Then Javic Thane disappears from twenty-first century Cardiff in a swirl of golden time.

Half an hour later, when Ianto awakens, body pleasantly sore, he rolls over to find the other side of the bed empty. He rolls his eyes. 

Javic was a fantastic shag, but Ianto has a feeling he won’t be seeing the Time Agent again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I'll be completely honest; my ulterior motive to writing this fic was always just this chapter. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto face the repercussions of their night together. They encounter each other once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the lack of a chapter last week. I was in the midst of midterms. Actually, I still am, but I just finished my data science midterm and thus, in celebration, here is a new chapter. After next week, I promise that we will return to a regular posting schedule. Enjoy!

Javic would have never called Ianto Jones plain, but for an ordinary human, he sure had made a home for himself in Javic’s thoughts often enough. 

Even after weeks have passed since Javic’s little foray to 2020, he will still find himself daydreaming about the other man, lusting after him, the way his blue eyes pierced Javic as he rode Javic’s cock, the slight slant to Ianto’s smile, the deep baritone of his voice. Javic shivers every time he thinks of Ianto’s Welsh accent; other Time Agents have complained about the twentieth and twenty-first century accents being uncouth and unpleasing to their ears, but Javic begs to differ. 

Every time he’s alone in his bed at his flat, or rather, any time he has a free minute in between missions and no offering partners, he places a hand on his cock and brings himself off to the thought of Ianto Jones clenching down on him, snogging his breath away. Often, it’s not even intentional, but thoughts of Ianto Jones creep into his mind.

Javic finds it just  _ a bit _ ridiculous; Ianto had been hot as hell and a good lay, with a sharp wit and intellect to boot, but Javic is not one to dwell on his past lovers. One particular Time Agent that Javic spent five years trapped in a time loop with is a prime example, although he’s since left the Time Agency. (Last Javic heard, he was sinning his way through the Vegas Galaxies.)

In fact, Javic’s preoccupation doesn’t go unnoticed by one certain sharp-eyed Time Agent.

“Your leer doesn’t seem up to its usual standard recently,” Krim Pollensa notes over dinner one night. He’s a dark-haired, twinkling-eyed fellow who Javic would be loath to call a friend, but Krim’s still one of few left from Javic’s recruitment batch. Javic still remembers him, weedy and pale-faced from who knows how many years ago.

“What do you mean, handsome?” asks Javic, trailing a hand over firm arm muscle and squeezing. He smirks as he watches Krim’s eyes narrow. He thinks the other man is married. Maybe. He cannot remember terribly well, but he was invited to a sort of bonding ceremony with  _ excellent  _ hypervodka. 

Krim recoils away, strengthening Javic’s theory about a spouse. “Christ, Thane! Have you no shame? How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not interested?”

“Many,  _ many _ times,” Javic replies cheerfully, winking. “And I’m fine! Looking forward to getting some time off after the next pay period!” Now, his smirk widens. “Places to see, people to become  _ well-acquainted  _ with.” He waggles his eyebrows. 

The other man sighs, staring down at his plate. “I don’t understand how Maglin hasn’t taken notice of your little time jaunts yet.”

Maglin Shank, the head of the Time Agency. Stern and an undeniable foil to Javic’s plans. How he loves pulling one over on her.

“What Maglin knows,” Javic says sagely, “won’t hurt her.” Besides, he’ll be back to the Time Agency soon enough. He’ll need to take another mission if he wants to keep earning his hefty paycheck. Then he turns back to Krim: “Now, how’s that...husband?...of yours?”

* * *

The original Torchwood Institute’s main flaw, Ianto came to eventually believe, was its lack of accountability for its director. Which is why, when he inevitably refounded the Institute in 2010, unintentionally becoming director, Ianto brought together a board to keep him in check.

The first iteration of the Torchwood Institute board had been small. It had consisted of Ianto himself, of Dr. Owen Harper, poached from the Cardiff Royal Infirmary after the tragic alien parasite-inflicted death of his wife Katie, and Toshiko Sato. While working for UNIT, Ianto had personally negotiated Tosh’s release from one of their prisons, and two years later, she agreed to work for him.

In 2012, with Torchwood growing again, came their first police liaison Gwen Cooper-Williams, who eventually rose through the ranks to become a board member. At the same time, Ianto also coaxed former companions Martha Jones and Mickey Smith to ditch their freelance alien-hunting to come work for Torchwood.

Today, they all sit at the head of Torchwood, and while Ianto is theoretically the one who calls the shots, the board leads more democratically in actuality.

They are also Ianto’s family. He was a guest at Tosh and Owen’s wedding, has been at every birthday for Anwen and August, Mickey and Martha’s son, and has celebrated his own triumphs and failures with them.

Family or not, however, when Ianto walks into the conference room only to meet Owen’s smug grin, he wishes he’d never met the doctor.

“Heard you crossed paths with a Time Agent,” snarks Owen. “Did he help get that stick out of your arse?”

Ianto nearly bristles but manages to smooth out his expression into a stoic smile. “Why, Owen,” he comments. “I didn’t know that was one of your kinks.”

Owen’s grin falters as Gwen accidentally spits out her coffee onto the glass table. Tosh drops her head to hide her giggling, receiving a scowl from her husband. Martha rolls her eyes, and Mickey snorts.

“ _ Bloody hell, _ Ianto!” Gwen complains. “I thought we agreed no sex talk before our meetings.”

“As if we haven’t heard you rank all the places you and Rhys shagged in the last month,” teases Tosh. “I’m still surprised that a broom closet was the top of the list.”

“It was the broom closet on the fifteen floor,” Mickey recalls before Martha elbows him into silence.

Ianto’s lips twitch as he takes his seat at the head of the table

Gwen is indignant, green eyes wide. “You try raising a ten-year-old!” she says. “Rhys and I are lucky to even  _ have _ a sex life at this point.” Her shoulders slump. “In a year or two, we’re going to have to explain why Mum and Dad disappear into their bedroom for so long some afternoons.”

“You should let Owen give her the sex talk,” Ianto says, gleefully imagining the doctor awkwardly trying to explain reproduction to the naturally inquisitive Anwen. He can’t imagine it went worse than how Rhiannon described Johnny trying to give the talk to Mica and David - at different times, albeit.

Gwen’s eyes go impossibly wider. “Oh, no, no. Rhys and I agreed it would be me. In fact, if I had to choose anyone else, it would be Martha, for obvious reasons.”

“Yes, well,” Martha replies, although she does look slightly smug, “anything like that is a few years away. Even longer for August.”

“Can we start our actual meeting?” asks Ianto, drumming his fingers against the table. “We all do have places to be.”

“Wait,” says Tosh suddenly, peering at Ianto. “You never did tell us how he was in bed.” Her smile is lascivious; marriage to Owen has certainly made her bolder.

“I didn’t say anything about how he was in be-” Ianto begins. Then he pauses, eyes narrowing. “Oh, ha  _ ha. _ ”

“You shagged him!” crows Owen. He leans forward, elbows braced on the table. “Was he human or were there any tentacles involved?”

Ianto flushes. “You’re the medical director! I know you’ve seen his scans. He’s human.”

“Mostly,” Owen corrects, rolling his eyes. “That doesn’t account for the eight percent of DNA we couldn’t identify.”

“He’s from the fifty-first century,” says Ianto, shoulders slumped. He just wants for this line of conversation to be over. “Who knows how humans have evolved since then?” Then before anyone can reply: “Can we  _ please  _ move on now? We have actual business to attend to.”

Thankfully, he only receives a smattering of agreements and a few nods, so he takes that as permission to progress to the first item on his agenda. Unfortunately, it’s still not the end of the teasing about Javic, which persists until the end of the day.

* * *

As he did yesterday, Ianto waves goodbye to Donna, exchanges pleasantries with everyone in the lobby, and finally breaks free of the Torchwood Institute building to arrive on the crowded Plass. He strides quickly across and just casually glances over to the bench where Javic was waiting yesterday to find...Javic Thane, sitting on the very same bench, his arms crossed indolently over his chest.

Ianto falters in his pace, eyes widening as he turns to face Javic. The other man, wearing trousers and a plain shirt but the same boots, straightens up when he spots Ianto gazing at him in surprise. Javic stalks forward until he’s standing mere inches away from Ianto, close enough to touch.

And touch they do, except it’s Javic who reaches for Ianto, snaking a hand around his waist to tug him forward until they are nearly pressed together. “Hello,” he murmurs, reaching out to flick at one of Ianto’s earlobes. Then he leans in and captures Ianto’s mouth for a messy snog.

Moments later, when they part for breath, panting, Ianto realizes that one of his hands is now draped over Javic’s shoulder. “That’s quite a hello,” he says but cannot mask the slight waver in or breathlessness of his voice. Javic smirks, a cat that trapped its canary.

“I was in the area,” Javic says as if it explains everything, but really, it explains nothing. “Thought I’d pop in and surprise you.” He steps back a bit, giving Ianto a suggestive once-over. He clearly likes Ianto’s black suit-white shirt-red tie combo, even if Ianto thinks it’s a little basic. “How have you been, Mr. Jones?”

“Javic,” Ianto begins, and the other man’s smirk widens, “it’s only been a day.” When Javic’s expression doesn’t change, although his eyebrows furrow together: “We slept together last night.”

Now, his eyes widen. “ _ Oh. _ Huh. That’s time travel for you.” His smirk softens into a bit of a sheepish smile, which Ianto somehow finds even more attractive than the smirk; he thinks it’s because it appears more genuine.

Ianto’s eyes travel meaningfully to Javic’s vortex manipulator. He sighs. “How long has it been for you?”

“At least a few weeks,” Javic replies. “Would you believe that I’m usually pretty timely?”

Ianto hums. “No.” A beat. “Why’d you come back? You don’t seem like the kind of bloke to repeat vacation destinations.”

The slight tilt of Javic’s head in response basically confirms Ianto’s assumption. Javic sidles closer, arm brushing against Ianto’s as he pulls Ianto back towards him. “Not destinations,” he says, “but I don’t mind repeating partners.” He drops his voice to a seductive whisper: “I couldn’t stop thinking about how tight and hot you were around me. I’ve seen your cock, seen how long and thick it is, and I started wondering about how it would feel inside me, fucking me, splitting me open.”

“ _ Fuck, _ ” groans Ianto quietly. He shivers, and Javic notices. 

“Yes,” replies Javic with an enthusiastic bob of his head. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

Reluctantly, Ianto steps back from the warmth of Javic’s embrace. Now, he can’t stop remembering flashes from last night, how responsive Javic had been when Ianto had ridden his cock, the way he moaned, all those delicious stretches of smooth skin. He wonders what Javic would look and sound like underneath him.

He clears his throat with a low cough. “You came all this way,” he asks, “for, as the kids say nowadays, a booty call?”

Javic shrugs. “I’m a Time Agent. I make my own rules. I go wherever this,” - he taps his vortex manipulator - “is willing to take me.” He grins. “Turns out, it’s most places and times.”

“Right, right.” Ianto nods. He’s light-headed from the heady scent of Javic’s pheremones, has been all this time, and it’s getting harder and harder to think. When Javic starts toying with the buttons of his suit jacket, he wants to drop to his knees already and pull the man’s cock out, right here, right in the middle of the Plass.

_ Nope.  _ That’s not a good line of thinking. Ianto’s fifty paces from the Torchwood Institute building. Any moment now, one of his employees could walk out and find the director consorting with the same Time Agent they brought in yesterday. Not only would Ianto be subjected to some awkward questioning, it would also give Owen - and maybe Gwen - more fodder for their teasing.

“We could go back to my flat,” he offers. “I’m sure you remember the way.”

The other man shakes his head. “I’d rather have a drink first.”

“Don’t you always,” Ianto mutters, but he still leads the way away from the Plass and towards a bar he knows.

* * *

They don’t make it to the bar.

Javic and Ianto walk casually side-by-side, arms brushing occasionally. Ianto can feel Javic’s body heat despite the thin layer of Javic’s shirt, and every once in a while, Javic will turn to him with that damn frustrating smirk and come-hither eyes.

They advance perhaps several blocks before Ianto finally caves and pulls Javic into an alley behind a pub, pressing him against the grungy brick and snogging him frantically. As Javic moans enthusiastically, Ianto shoves a hand underneath Javic’s shirt, tracing over the contour of the smooth muscle, not-so-gently tweaking Javic’s nipples. Javic’s moan breaks off into a hiss as he places a solid hand between Ianto’s shoulder blades to pull him closer.

“Fuck,  _ fuck, _ ” mutters Javic in between messy kisses. “Your mouth is just as talented as I remembered.”

“I’m glad to live up to expectation,” Ianto growls, then flips them until his own back scrapes against the brick. He breaks their snogging off and places two hands on both of Javic’s shoulders to push him down. 

Javic goes easily, dropping to his knees, eyes fixed on the large bulge in Ianto’s trousers. He leans forward and rubs his face against the wool, and it feels so undeniably fantastic that Ianto groans deep in his throat. The other man leers at the sound, unzipping Ianto’s trousers to pull out his semi-hard cock. He licks his lips, and the sight sends electricity sparking up Ianto’s spine.

Soft lips close around the head of Ianto’s cock as Javic sucks lightly, and Ianto hisses. Then slowly, painfully slowly, Javic eases his mouth further down the length until Ianto’s entire cock sinks into warm, silken heat.

“Oh, fuck,” moans Ianto, neck arching, barely registering the back of his head hitting brick. He reaches down to root a hand tightly in Javic’s hair, yanking. The other man only hums around Ianto’s cock, and Ianto nearly whimpers at the exquisite sensation. He whimpers for real when Javic reaches a hand to toy with his aching balls.

After several minutes of Javic sucking his cock with Ianto’s hips pressed flat against the wall to avoid fucking Javic’s mouth, Ianto comes in a hard burst down Javic’s throat. Javic swallows politely, licks his lips again, and then stretches up to kiss Ianto breathless. 

Ianto secretly thrills in the fact that he can taste himself on Javic’s lips.

“Shall we proceed to the bar?” Javic asks, grinning when Ianto staggers away from the wall with wobbly knees.

“When we return to my flat,” Ianto promises, “I’m going to fuck you so hard that you won’t be able to walk straight for days.”

Javic’s grin only widens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed that.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto enjoy drinks at the bar before sneaking off to the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finished all my midterms, and to celebrate, here's your usual smlc chapter. Not like I wasn't gonna post it anyways ahahhaha. But now, back to our regularly scheduled programming! I hope you enjoy this! I promise there will be actual plot eventually and not just smut. And if there's anything you want to see in this fic, lemme know! Nothing's off-limits!

Javic takes a sip of his amber-colored whisky, savoring the smoky taste and notes of oak and caramel as it burns down his throat. His expertly-trained tongue can tell that the liquor is obviously very expensive, but he would honestly prefer hypervodka.

That, or a tequila sunrise from Qestria, which literally makes you hallucinate sunrises. Now, that was an odd morning the last time Javic was back on that planet.

He casts a glance around the bar, eyeing the well-dressed patrons. The place is well-lit, with simple, sleek light fixtures dangling everywhere. The actual bar that he and Ianto are seated at is made of a dark, luxurious-looking wood accompanied by leather stools. There’s a giant back bar made of delicate glass lined with interestingly-shaped, colorful bottles. The bartenders are all incredibly attractive, dressed in all black. Behind Javic are several leather-lined booths, mostly empty.

Javic thinks it’s a weekday. Primitive human drinking culture is still not very nine-to-five friendly.

“Do you come here often?” he asks Ianto as the older man slouches back on his stool, lean legs hooked around the legs. Javic wouldn’t mind seeing those legs hooked around his waist; he remembers what it felt like when Ianto straddled him.

Ianto, usually so stoic and composed, has removed his tie, which is likely stuffed into his pocket, and undone the first few buttons of his dress shirt. His eyes are heavy-lidded, mouth slack; Javic thinks it’s possible that he actually sucked Ianto’s brains out from his dick. 

“No, no,” drawls Ianto, fingers clutched loosely around his crystal decanter. “I came here once.” He hums. “Maybe for Gwen’s birthday?” He cocks his head, shrugging. Javic likes this version of him, unstrung and relaxed but very obviously still on his guard; the handgun tucked into the holster beneath his suit jacket is a good indicator. 

“Who’s Gwen?” Javic questions, leering. “Your girlfriend?”

The other man rolls his eyes. “She’s more like a sister than anything.” He tosses a lazy glance to Javic. “Do you have to make everything sexual?”

The leer transforms into a proud grin. “I consider it my duty and birthright.”

After a long sip of his whisky, Javic’s eyes trained predictably on Ianto’s lips, Ianto chuckles richly. “You certainly are an experience, Javic Thane.”

“Piotr,” interjects Javic, wanting inexplicably to hear his entire name in Ianto’s melodious accent. “Javic Piotr Thane.” His grin widens. “That’s my full name.”

“Javic Piotr Thane,” Ianto echoes. He sips at his drink again. “It suits you.”

Javic takes a long drag of his whisky to ignore how Ianto’s affirmation of his name sets his heart, and every part of his body, aflame. He can feel the blood rushing downwards as his cock stirs in his trousers. The warm flush the whisky is contributing isn’t helping either. 

“Tell me about yourself, Ianto,” he says.

Ianto’s lips curl into a loose smile. “My name is Ianto Jones,” he says, “and I’m the director of the Torchwood Institute. I’m thirty-seven and single. I was born on August 19, 1983 in Newport, Wales. Both my parents died over a decade ago.” He runs a finger around the rim of his decanter. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“That sounds more like you’re reciting a cover identity,” complains Javic, pouting. Briefly, he straightens up, allowing his expression to become sober. “I’m sorry about your parents. Were you close?”

“Close?” Ianto momentarily hesitates. “My mum and I, yes. Thankfully, I was able to be there for her before her death.” A beat. “My dad and I?” He snorts. “We had a difficult relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” Javic repeats. And he thinks he might really mean it when he says it to Ianto, which is odd, because he so rarely genuinely means his apologies.

Ianto finishes off his last mouthful of whisky before gently pushing the glass away. “Are you close with yours?” He smirks. “Unless you’re some test tube baby. Has they achieved that by the fifty-first century?”

“I am most definitely _not_ a test tube baby,” Javic says, huffing a laugh. Then he sighs. “I... _lost_ both my parents when I was young. Spent some time growing up in an orphanage.”

“Oh,” says Ianto quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. It wasn’t all bad.” Javic glances up as a bartender moves before them, pointing towards his and Ianto’s empty glasses with a quizzical expression. “Another whisky,” he requests before glancing back at Ianto. “Actually make that two.” Ianto doesn’t deny Javic’s order, so Javic winks at the bartender, who blushes before moving away.

When he turns back to Ianto, he finds Ianto staring at him, thoughtful.

“Just catching a glimpse of you last week sent all my employees into a tizzy,” notes Ianto. “You have quite the effect on people.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” replies Javic with a wink at Ianto, who doesn’t blush. Rather, Ianto rolls his eyes. 

“Your ego really is quite large,” Ianto says.

“Not as large as my cock,” Javic says with a cheerful grin. He expects another eye roll from Ianto, but instead, the other man slides his hand across the wood of the bar until his fingers creep over Javic’s wrist.

“I know,” Ianto says, dropping his voice to a suggestive whisper that causes Javic’s skin to prick into gooseflesh. “I’ve had it inside me. I remember just how _big_ it felt.” 

“Yours isn’t too unremarkable either,” remarks Javic, eyes dropping to Ianto’s crotch where a sizable bulge is beginning to grow. Javic can feel himself hardening as he flashes back to the older man riding him enthusiastically, squeezing tightly around him. He can barely keep a hand from straying to cup himself. In a whisper of his own: “ _I want you to fuck me._ ”

Ianto’s blue eyes have darkened considerably with lust. “I think we’re done here,” he says, with just a tinge of frenzy to his words. He tosses a wad of bills onto the bar, never mind that the bartender hasn’t returned with their drinks, and latches a strong hand around Javic’s wrist, pulling him away.

But they don’t head towards the exit.

* * *

“You don’t seem the type to fuck in a bar bathroom,” Javic notes when Ianto slams him against the clean wall. “Too clean-cut and respect... _oh._ ” His words trail into a deep groan as Ianto thrusts a hand down his trousers, grasping his cock with dry fingers and stroking roughly a few times. The friction is painful, but Javic relishes the sensation.

A warm mouth slants over Javic’s, faint stubble scraping against his own smooth jawline, a slick tongue twisting and sliding along his own, and he doesn’t even notice when Ianto’s hand disappears from his cock. There’s slim fingers sliding into his hair and yanking until Javic hisses into the kiss. He feels himself being devoured, melting against the wall, his arms going to pull the solid body against him.

Making out, Javic decides, as Ianto’s tongue coaxes his mouth to widen further, stroking along the sensitive spots that cause him to shiver, is highly underrated. The other man smells faintly like citrus, the wool of his suit unbelievably soft under Javic’s fingers.

Unfortunately, it’s over too soon as Ianto steps back. Javic whines low in his throat. He wants to stay here forever, pinned against the wall, Ianto’s mouth sliding against his. The other man is a talented kisser, and Javic takes back everything he said previously about not being one to dwell on his past lovers.

Ianto Jones is worth dwelling on.

“The door is locked, but we still don’t have much time,” Ianto rasps, rubbing hypnotically at his jaw. His eyes are wild. “I’m going to fuck you, but you’re going to have to stay quiet. Can you do that?” _For me_ goes unasked.

His own eyes wide, Javic nods enthusiastically. “I’ll have you know, for a later date, that I’m quite loud.”

Ianto, the smart man that he is, doesn’t ask if there’s going to be a later date. Instead, he too nods. “Noted.” He watches hungrily as Javic reaches in his pocket, slips out the thin packet of twenty-first century lube he acquired from somewhere, and rips it open, slicking up his fingers.

With his dry hand, Javic shoves down his trousers to tangle around his knees and spreads his cheeks to reveal his hole, hearing Ianto inhale sharply. Javic smirks. His movements are swift and efficient as he slides a finger inside himself, then another, scissoring himself loose. He bites back a quiet moan but successfuly resists the urge to angle his fingers towards his prostate and finger-fuck himself for a few minutes before he turns back to Ianto.

“Not going to add a third finger?” asks Ianto, eyebrows raised, eyes glued to Javic’s ass.

“Do we have the time?” Javic snaps as he pulls his fingers out, clenching down unhappily. It’s a general fact about Javic Thane; he’s much, much happier with a cock up his ass, be it plastic, alien, or human. Many, including some of his fellow Time Agents, will think that makes him desperate; he doesn’t care. “Come here.” He uses the very same fingers to gesture Ianto closer.

Ianto pushes him back against the wall, hoisting him higher until Javic can wrap his legs around Ianto’s waist. It’s a bit difficult at first, Javic’s trousers getting in the way, but eventually, those are dropped to the floor and Javic barely remembers to roll a condom onto Ianto’s cock.

Finally, _finally,_ Ianto is sliding inside Javic, his cock splitting him wide as Ianto bottoms out inside him. Javic clenches down happily, smirking, squeezing down as tightly as he dares until Ianto hisses, panting into his ear.

“You bastard,” Ianto growls, and Javic’s smirk grows before it’s forced off his face by a hard thrust of Ianto’s hip. Then Ianto pulls out a bit until only the head of his cock remains wedged inside Javic, Javic whining loudly, and then forces his full length inside Javic. “Thought you said you could remain quiet.” The smug tone is accompanied with another thrust as Ianto establishes a merciless rhythm.

“ _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,_ ” Javic whimpers, toes curling, ankles tightening against the small of Ianto’s back, as Ianto angles his hips perfectly to strike Javic’s prostate. Colorful sparks explode behind his eyes as he turns and presses his face into the wall behind him. He keeps his lips pressed tightly together, although a few whines still escape. “ _Fuck._ ”

Firm fingers wrap around Javic’s jaw, turning his face back, and Ianto leans in to capture his mouth again, kissing him dirtily and with splendid use of tongue. His fingers squeeze harder and harder around Javic’s skin, and Javic wants to beg for those fingers around his throat. There’s no time. Sex like that would require a bed.

Ianto moans quietly, his movements becoming frantic. Javic can feel his balls tightening as the pleasure builds up across his spine. He bears back down on Ianto’s cock, but there’s only so much limited mobility one can muster while pinned so gloriously against a wall.

The fingers pull away from his face, and Javic protests into Ianto’s mouth, but Ianto is only moving his hand to Javic’s cock and stroking, using Javic’s precome to ease the friction. He skillfully rubs his thumb over the head, twisting around the base, tightening his grip, somehow synchronized with his thrusts. Javic sighs and leans back a bit, allowing himself to be _taken_ as he bucks his hips slightly into Ianto’s hand.

It doesn’t take much longer before Ianto spills into the condom with a quiet groan, eyebrows knitted together furiously, mouth dropping slack. He tugs once, twice, more on Javic’s cock before Javic comes all over his hand. 

Luckily, they’re right next to a sink, so Ianto quickly washes his hand off and uses a wet paper towel to wipe off Javic’s cock before pulling out, Javic whimpering quietly. The condom is knotted and thrown away, and both men straighten their clothes, immediately becoming aware that the outside of the bathroom is suspiciously quiet.

“They couldn’t have not noticed us sneaking into this bathroom,” Javic says, slightly bewildered.

Ianto grins. “I took care of it,” he says. At Javic’s questioning look: “Perception filter. They’ve briefly forgotten this bathroom exists. No harm, no foul.”

Javic returns Ianto’s grin. “You bastard,” he says before he pulls Ianto in for another kiss.

* * *

Outside, the Cardiff evening air is chilly against Javic’s Boeshane skin. (He may not have been back in over a decade, but the Boeshane sun clings to your bones.) He suppresses a shiver, but Ianto notices and steps closer.

“Where do you even get the clothes?” asks Ianto curiously after they’ve been walking aimlessly through the city streets for almost ten minutes. “I’m presuming that 2020 chic is not exactly future fashion.”

“I buy them,” Javic replies, tapping his trusty vortex manipulator. “This thing has digital payment capabilities. Kinda like what you can do from that cell phone of yours.” He shrugs. “Bit old-fashioned.”

“ _Bit old-fashioned,_ ” Ianto echoes, looking amused. “You know, virtual payment was considered the height of advanced society not even five years ago.”

Javic barks a laugh. “Awww, that’s so quaint.”

“So do you wear the vortex manipulator even when you shower?” Ianto asks a few minutes later, clearly brimming with curiosity. He’s not prying too much, though, which Javic appreciates. Just asking basic questions. 

“Do you take your phone into the shower?” counters Javic. “How do you even know we have showers? What if we have sonic decontaminators?”

Ianto snorts. Then he glances at Javic’s nonchalant expression. His eyes widen. “ _Really?_ ” He sounds young, almost boyishly excited.

“I’m not telling,” sings Javic, watching those same piercing blue eyes narrow. “Can’t tell you about the future. I could cause a time loop. Least that’s what my boss says.”

“Ah, yes,” says Ianto dryly. “The elusive head of the Time Agency. Is she every bit as mysterious as I’m imagining?”

Javic thinks about Maglin Shank. Then he thinks again. And a bit more. Finally, he shakes his head. “Nah, she’s a bit bitchy really. Always has a problem with me.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Ianto continues in the same tone. “Because you definitely probably don’t bunk your job for long stretches of time.”

Javic shoves Ianto lightly. “Hey, one of those long stretches of time involved blowing you, so you shouldn’t be complaining.” He rolls his eyes, gesturing to the vortex manipulator. “Besides, I’ll be back less than a minute after I left. She won’t have noticed anything. Or have missed me.” He pouts. “Imagine that. Imagine not missing my face.”

“Sometimes,” Ianto begins, “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

“Something you should realize about me, Ianto Jones,” Javic says, expression completely stoic, “is that I’m never serious.”

“You’d be a horrible Torchwood employee.” Ianto comes to a stop outside a building. Javic recognizes it as where his flat is located. “Wanna come up for coffee or something?”

It’s a tempting offer, but Javic shakes his head again. “Nah. You’re right. I should go back.”

“Glad you have some sense of responsibility,” snarks Ianto.

“Who is to say I won’t just jump a week ahead to meet you again?” retorts Javic, grinning when Ianto’s eyes widen. Before Ianto can reply, Javic leans forward to steal a quick kiss from him. “Bye, Ianto Jones.” 

Then he taps a button on his vortex manipulator and disappears in a swirl of golden light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you enjoyed that.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ianto proceeds with his week as usual, but his thoughts keep straying towards a particular Time Agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! So, so sorry for the lack of a chapter last week! I was posting daily chapters for a fool me once Halloween spinoff, so if you haven't read that - or fool me once, fool me twice - I hope you like it! But anyways, we're back to posting chapters weekly!
> 
> In fact...and this is excited for me, I finished the first arc of this fic of three! Onwards towards writing the first chapter of the second arc.
> 
> Also, feel free to lemme know what you think is going on or you think will happen next! It makes me very happy and excited to read all your guys' comments and theories! (Also, thank you for all the comments! They are much appreciated!)
> 
> Also, I know everything is chaotic right now, especially for us Americans, so I really hope this helps as a small distraction. Hopefully, by next week, this agonizing wait-and-watch will be over????
> 
> Enjoy this chapter!

“Nice of you to show up,” sniffs Rhiannon, one dark eyebrow arched, when Ianto knocks on her front door, a bottle of fine wine cradled in his arms.

Ianto sighs. “I’m sorry, Rhi. I told you, I got caught up at work.” He raises an identical brow of his own. “Are you going to let me in?”

“You’re the boss,” Rhiannon continues in that same disgruntled tone, but her blue eyes are sparkling with mischief. “Can’t you give yourself some time off?” As Ianto rolls his eyes, she steps aside to allow him entry, shutting the door behind him. “You should have texted ahead. Johnny’s visiting his sister, so I didn’t cook anything. I could have asked you to pick up takeaway.”

“Leftovers will be fine,” replies Ianto dryly. “David not back for the weekend?”

Rhiannon gently takes the bottle of wine from him. “No, but Mica is.” Then she turns her head towards the stairs and hollers, “Mica, your Uncle Ianto is here!” Ianto, covering his ears with his palms, glares at her.

His glare softens, however, when he hears rapid footsteps thundering down the stairs. Finally, Mica emerges into the hallway, and he smiles.

Mica has grown into quite the miniature of Johnny, with his brown eyes and brown hair but Rhiannon’s rounded cheeks. Her lips break into a gleeful smile, eyes glowing, when she catches sight of him. “Uncle Ianto!”

Ianto allows his niece to wrap her skinny arms around him in a tight hug before he worms away. He has a soft spot for his niece and nephew now. Actually, he’s always had it, even when he was miserable with children and had to literally pay them to leave him alone. Now, his wallet never feels any impact, and he can carry on adult conversations with Mica and David.

After she presses a quick kiss to his cheek, he asks, “Uni treating you well?”

Her ponytail sways as she nods. “As well as uni can be.” She shrugs. “How are you? How’s  _ Torchwood? _ ”

“Mica,” Rhiannon says sharply. “We’ve talked about this.” Ianto nods gravely. “No more talk about Torchwood until you graduate.”

It’s been about a decade since he disclosed Torchwood’s existence to Rhiannon and Johnny, and then at a point where they felt the children were old enough, they told David and Mica about Uncle Ianto’s actual job. Mica became very determined to join her uncle’s organization, and since then, nothing Ianto or Rhiannon have done or said has been enough to dissuade her. Finally, she agreed to the stipulation that she could only attempt to join after university, although Ianto knows that Rhiannon is still hoping Mica will decide against it at the eleventh hour.

“Shall we eat now?” Ianto asks cordially, before both mother and daughter can delve into their constant argument.

While Rhiannon heats the leftovers of last night’s roast dinner, Ianto chats further with Mica. They have become especially close since Mica entered high school and discovered that she liked girls. She was overjoyed to find that she could come to her Uncle Ianto for advice. At one point in high school, he even took her suit shopping for a social, a memory he treasures.

His own contributions to the conversation are few, mostly because it is only Torchwood he is involved with and he knows Rhiannon would not like Torchwood mentioned again. Still, he grills Mica on her classes, offering to help where he can, and cracks his usual witty one-liners.

“That’s enough out of you,” Rhianon says eventually as she sets the covered dish on the dining table along with a few plates. “You’re still far too skinny. Talk less, eat more.”

Rather than scowl at his sister, Ianto takes a polite bite of his roast dinner. Then he reluctantly drags his fork to the limp pile of green beans also stacked on his plate when Rhiannon glares at him, Mica giggling in the background. 

“I’m thirty-seven, Rhi,” he protests, grimacing at the taste.

“Even thirty-seven-year-old eat their vegetables,” Rhiannon replies sternly. “I didn’t think I would still have to treat you like I did David and Mica.” She sips at her wine, eyebrows raised as she watches him polish off the green beans.

When their plates are empty, Mica asks, “Can we have ice cream, Mum?”

“If you want,” says Rhiannon, “but none for me or your uncle-”

“-cause it gives you a headache,” finishes Mica, rolling her eyes. She takes their plates to the sink before reaching into the freezer of the refrigerator and pulling out an ice cream tin. She scoops a sizeable portion into a bowl and returns to the dining table. “Did you know that it’s only you and Uncle Ianto? I’ve never heard of anyone else who gets headaches from ice cream.”

“Nan did too,” Ianto tells her. “When we would go visit, she would make us custard instead.”

“At least it wasn’t fruit cake instead.” Rhiannon shudders. “She only made it during the holidays, but I could barely stomach Nan’s fruit cake. It tasted too sweet.”

Ianto also recalls that horrid fruit cake, stifling a laugh. “It wasn’t that horrid,” he assures Mica. “Nan just put too much fruit into it.”

Rhiannon wrinkles her nose. “It felt like chewing a brick of raisins.”

Mica nearly gags on her ice cream. “Mum!”

As mother and daughter finally delve into their usual bickering, Ianto takes the time to finish off his wine, smiling softly to himself. When he glances up, he finds Rhiannon staring at him oddly.

“What?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Nothing.” Later, she packs his leftovers into a baggie before cornering him in the hallway as he slips his shoes and coat back on. “Have you met someone then?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

Ianto nearly drops his baggie of food. “ _ What? _ ” He hesitates just a moment too long, and her expression only becomes more scrutinizing. “Why would you think that?”

“You seem different,” she notes with a bit of a smile. “Lighter. Happier.” After a pause: “Who are they then? Man? Woman?”

“I haven’t met anyone!” stutters Ianto, squashing down thoughts of Javic. He pulls his coat tight around him. “I’m going now! I’ll text you before next weekend for dinner again.”

As he storms away down the house, blushing fiercely, Rhiannon leans out the door and calls after him, “Bring them around to meet us soon! I want to judge them for myself.”

Not that it’s likely to happen, Ianto decides as he drives back to his flat, but Javic Thane is not to ever meet Ianto’s sister. 

* * *

Sunday comes and goes after dinner at Rhiannon’s, and the Rift, mercifully, stays quiet, so Ianto returns to the Torchwood Institute building on Monday morning, just in time for another board meeting.

“No word from your boyfriend?” Owen teases until Ianto scowls long enough that Owen rolls his eyes and begins his presentation on the alien corpse that his researchers dissected after it fell through the Rift last week. 

Apparently, this species has an interesting camouflage ability, and Owen proposes attempting to mimic it for Torchwood’s own shielding since perception filters can only do so much. 

“I’ll see what my team can come up with based on your scans,” Tosh promises Owen, eyes alight with interest. Ianto can practically see the thoughts whirring through her head as she begins to run numbers and specs.

There’s nothing else too interesting going on in the city, and the Rift flares seem to be under control by their field operatives, so Ianto adjourns the meeting. They’ll meet again in two days in an official capacity even if Ianto ends up going to Gwen’s house for dinner that night.

Rhys cooks a mean lasagna, which Ianto enjoys with a glass of wine as he and Gwen chat. Rhys is busy helping Anwen with a science project for school, so Ianto sees neither hide nor tail of them for most of the evening. He helps Gwen tidy the kitchen, pressing a kiss to her cheek when he thanks her for the meal, before he drives home.

On Tuesday, the Rift stays quiet, and after finishing his paperwork, Ianto stretches his legs by leading a few of the new trainee operatives on a raid on a nearby Weevil nest they’d been monitoring. Some of the pregnant and younger Weevils will go to Owen for observation, but the rest will be secured in the vaults for a few days before ultimately being released.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Tosh announces that her team has already created a few prototypes of the shield. Ianto vows to visit her lab to check it out himself. Meanwhile, Martha’s results for a new healing accelerant look promising.

Thursday evening, Ianto, Owen, and Mickey go out for their weekly pub night. Ianto endures a few more playful barbs about Javic but shuts Owen up by sweeping him in a darts competition. They taxi home, all three pleasantly buzzed.

In fact, Ianto is feeling loose enough that he kicks off his shoes when he enters his flat, tossing his coat messily over the coat rack. It slips to the floor. He’ll probably regret it in the morning, but right now, he cannot bring himself to care.

He undresses lazily in the dark of his bedroom, trading his three-piece suit, which he actually does fold away, for sweatpants and a sleep shirt. His head swims as he clambers onto his bed, giggling slightly when he nearly slips off. He lays down and turns to the side, remembering how almost a week ago, Javic Thane had lain here besides him.

Before Ianto knows it, he’s shoved one hand down his sweatpants to grasp his stirring cock. Hastily, he pulls his hand out and slicks it up with lube that he’s grabbed from a nightstand drawer. He tosses the bottle aside, pushing his sweatpants past his hips.

As he begins to stroke his cock, from base to head, pausing to toy with his balls, he thinks of Javic’s smug flirting and frustrating smirk. Of his harsh panting when Ianto had ridden him in this very bed. Of his wide eyes and needy whines when Ianto fucked him in the bar’s bathroom. 

Feeling his balls beginning to tighten, Ianto thinks of Javic bent over his desk in Ianto’s office, looking very pretty and exposed spread over the expensive mahogany. Ianto imagines shoving into the warm tightness of his hole, of Javic choking on his cock, on his knees underneath said desk, Ianto busy with his paperwork. His mouth was so talented when he blew Ianto in that alley, making Ianto wonder what else that mouth can do besides flirt.

Then he imagines Javic taking him against a wall in his flat, fucking him until he can no longer sit properly. Of being on his knees for Javic and causing the pretty, arrogant Time Agent to unravel into incoherence. He wants to be responsible for that, responsible for turning Javic speechless.

It doesn’t take Ianto long to come, his warm release splattering all over his hand and stomach as he tosses his head back against his pillows, toes curling. Swiftly, he reaches for a few tissues and cleans up the mess, tossing them into the nearby rubbish bin, but he’s too lazy to get up and thoroughly clean himself in the bathroom.

As Ianto turns on his side, burrowing under his blankets, hand stretching into the side of the bed that Javic Thane had briefly occupied, he almost thinks that he misses the man.

* * *

Another week passes with no sign of Javic Thane, but that doesn’t stop Ianto from thinking about him every single day. It’s not even just masturbating to him anymore. Yesterday, Ianto caught himself comparing the color of a tie in a department store to Javic’s eyes. (He bought the tie.)

He arrives at his Monday meeting with Owen, Tosh, Gwen, Martha, and Mickey as buttoned-up as he can possibly be. He’s even wearing a waistcoat today and his favorite tie. (Not the new one.)

“We’re having some field operatives test our shielding prototypes in their training today,” Tosh tells them. “If it works well, we might go ahead and try to find ways of incorporating it into armor and the uniforms.” She still grimaces slightly at the word; even after a decade, Tosh’s fear of uniformed soldiers and UNIT hasn’t completely faded, which is why she stays in the lab mostly.

“Go ahead, Tosh,” Ianto says, even if his permission is fairly only symbolic. It’s still nice to be able to praise his friends on their hard work. “You did brilliantly!”

She beams, Owen rubbing the hand she’s placed on the table gently in support. 

Next is Gwen who updates them on changes in the Cardiff city council and in the police force. Which is actually minimal. One of the alien refugee youth was caught shoplifting yesterday, and she’s asked Andy to keep an eye out for others so that Torchwood can stage an intervention if necessary. Nothing groundbreaking.

Ianto drums his fingers against the table. Finally: “I guess that’s it. I will see most of you around the Institute today. The meeting is adjourned.”

On his way out, he’s called by Gwen to wait briefly.

When she reaches his side, she smiles at him. “How have you been, Ianto?” she asks, in a manner that seems eerily reminiscent of Rhiannon. For a moment, he thinks they’ve been conspiring together again. Not for the first time, he regrets introducing them, but he’s almost a decade too late.

“I’m alright,” Ianto says. “Do you need something, Gwen?” A beat. “No, really. I think Donna wanted to meet with me.” He’s lying straight through his teeth, to avoid what looks like a confrontation, and Gwen knows it, because her smile widens.

She nudges him gently with her elbow. “Yes,” she says, tossing a sheet of dark hair speckled with grey over her shoulder. “I want to catch up with my best friend.” Her green eyes narrow. “You seem different in the past few weeks. Happier. Lighter. Like something’s changed.”

“Have you been talking to Rhiannon?” he blurts out, lips curling into a slight frown.

“No,” says Gwen. Then at Ianto’s raised eyebrow, she shrugs. “Something might have been mentioned.” She reaches out to smooth down Ianto’s suit jacket affectionately, patting his shoulders. “We just want you to be happy! And the only noticeable change recently seems to have been Mr. Time Agent.” She waggles her eyebrows at him.

“Gwen,” Ianto says flatly. “I love you. I really do. But we’re never,  _ ever _ going to talk about my sex life and what Javic and I got up to.”

“But you’re not denying that you and Javic got up to  _ something, _ ” she notes, winking at him. “So I do know something.”

“Gwen Cooper-Williams,” says Ianto, this time a little petulant. “Don’t you have trainees to terrorize?”

Gwen laughs. “I’m going, I’m going. Alright, Ianto. I won’t bring Javic up again.” She tugs him in for a warm hug, and her hair smells faintly like jasmine. She whispers into his ear, “How big is his cock?”

“Gwen!” Ianto squawks, blushing brightly. “You’re a married woman.”

“Please,” Gwen replies, giggling as she walks away. “You should hear what Tosh, Martha, and I discuss at our Friday night dinners.”

“I most certainly don’t wish to,” Ianto calls back to her.

But Gwen, and Rhiannon, are right. Ianto’s been feeling different, a bit more effervescent. And his recent preoccupation with a certain Time Agent serves as a clear example that his priorities in life have shifted slightly in recent weeks.

_ What is it about Javic Thane, _ wonders Ianto as he returns to his office,  _ that makes him so alluring to me? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Javic will show up soon enough! In fact, he might have his own chapter...but that's for you to find out next week!
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic jumps around to 1927 New York, to any alien bar in the future, and finally, to 2006 London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fun chapter with a few surprises, but uh, as you'll see, a lot of Javic introspection! I hope you enjoy it! It kinda sets up a bit of plot for the next two chapters but also, not really that much.
> 
> (Enjoy the pining, Kai!)
> 
> I don't really have a lot to say this time! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

1927 isn’t a bad year, Javic decides, as he swaggers through the streets of New York, drawing curious glances from women dressed conservatively and even more discreet but curious glances from men. The suit he’s wearing is old-fashioned but cut well, mostly covered by the long grey coat he’s wearing, and briefly, Javic thinks that Ianto Jones would like peeling it off him, before he’s wondering why he’s even thinking about the Welshman at all with a whole new city and a clean stretch of time to explore both sprawling before him.

He strides down several streets, winking at his onlookers, his fedora tilted at a rakish angle, before turning an abrupt corner and disappearing into a red bricked alley. He continues down far enough until he encounters a metal door, darkened and dirtied enough to blend against the muddy brick. He raps sharply against the door, and a thin grate slides open, revealing a suspicious brown gaze.

“Password?”

“Eurydice,” Javic says cheerfully. The gaze becomes a bit more approving, and the thin grate screeches shut. Javic steps back as he hears faint creaking, the person inside undoing the numerous locks. Finally, the door creaks open outwards to reveal the black-and-white-suited man behind it. He nods as Javic enters, taking Javic’s fedora and coat to hang on a rack along the side of the inner entrance.

Down a short hallway and through a wood door, and Javic arrives in a large room full of light and music and laughter and song. The room is panelled all over with dark, shiny wood that matches the floor, the low stage in the front, and the full bar pressed along one wall. The bar is lined with shelves of grubby bottles of liquor Javic knows to burn his throat but still give him a buzz and is maintained by a bartender in a loose shirt and trousers. 

Most men, all wearing variants of sharp suits similar to Javic’s, are accompanied by women with sparkling dresses that sweep in just below their knees, hair bobbed or coiled with glittering pins or headbands. Ever so rarely, some men press together in shadowy corners, or some women weave their fingers together, swaying on the dance floor with other couples in a manner that straddles the line between assumed platonic and their true romantic. 

A trio of Black musicians positioned in the corner besides the stage had struck up a lively tune to which a gorgeous dusky-skinned woman croons smokily into her microphone on stage, singing of love and devils and witches and spells. She sounds like a woman after Javic’s own heart and sings like a siren.

Booths draped in plush red velvet are pressed along a back wall, and couples of all kinds are necking or slipping hands in places that wouldn’t be touched in polite company.

The year is 1927, and it’s Prohibition. Skirts are higher, spirits are looser, and everyone’s out to have a wild time.

Holy fuck, Javic loves time travel.

He heads towards the bar, nodding to the bartender. “Your cheapest liquor,” he requests and then slides over a handleful of coins. Internally, he scoffs. Metal coins and paper money, how fucking primitive. At least 2020 has virtual payment.

The bartender pours him the drink with finesse, and he takes it, slinking across the speakeasy to lean against a dimly-lit corner. The alcohol burns his throat as he throws the entire glass back in one smooth move; it’s tasteless, and he nearly gags, licking his lips. 

Well, he certainly doesn’t come to the time period for its alcohol, unlike the twenty-first century. 

His gaze travels across the dance floor. The music has picked up a beat, and his eyes linger over lithe limbs twisting and shaking in mid-air, sharp knees and elbows, muscular chests, broad shoulders, corded necks.

Javic isn’t looking for anything particular tonight, but particular finds him instead. A tall blue-eyed man with just the slightest of curl to his neatly-gelled hair slips off the dance floor, leaving behind his pouting dance partner, and cuts straight towards Javic.

“You look like a man who knows how to draw all the eyes in a room,” he says with a faint musical accent tickling his words. It certainly isn’t Welsh, Javic knows, but abruptly finds himself wishing it was.

His smirk takes a lot more effort than usual. “I was hoping for just one pair.” He crosses his legs at the ankle, adopting a careless yet effortless slouch that has worked on many, human or not. “And my hopes have been more than fulfilled.”

The man smiles brilliantly, slinking closer, pressing into the shadows of Javic’s little corner. “Is that so?” A beat. “What are you drinking? Could I buy a man a drink?”

Javic swirls his nearly empty glass around, glancing down at the pale liquor. “Something cheap. You’d be better off drinking water.”

“In a time like this?” The other man snorts. “I think not. Anything is better than nothing.” He quirks an eyebrow at Javic. “My name is Matthew. Yours?”

Javic glances towards Matthew’s ice chip eyes - not the particular shade of blue swimming in his mind’s eye - and suddenly finds himself missing the itching urge to run his hands over every inch of that golden heated skin. 

Why flirt with a copy when Javic could just flirt with the real thing?

After a minute of deliberation: “I’m afraid my name will have to wait. My apologies.”

He pushes past a bewildered Matthew, resting his glass on the bar, and collects his coat and fedora near the entrance. He slides them on and then out in the alley, checking that both ends of the street are clear, thumbs the buttons on his vortex manipulator before disappearing in a swirl of golden light.

* * *

The alien bar in the fifty-first century is the furthest thing from the old-fashioned glow of 1927 New York.

Humanoids in every shade and tentacled, feathered, or scaled aliens mill about or sit along the long bar pressed in the back, colored bottles of alcohol lining its sheleves, or writhe and grind against each other on the dance floor. Their bodies pulse under the flashing colored lights emanating from the floating orbs above the dancers. Thumping music composed of shrieks and grunts and hissing blares through invisible speakers, the lights timed with the wild beats.

Beyond the superficial lights and music, rougher, scarred aliens or humanoids linger in shadowy corners, weapons barely hidden on their bodies, physical credits discreetly being traded between hands or virtual credits being bumped from device to device.

Javic takes this all in from where he stands at the grand double door entrance of the bar before swaggering in. He’s no longer in the old-fashioned suit, synthetic leather trousers clinging to his legs, the sleeves of his shirt folded down at his elbows to reveal his vortex manipulator.

In a bar like this, with its criminal underbelly barely even hidden, being a Time Agent is an advantage, a badge of honor and a badge of warning. 

He heads to one of said corners, smiling and winking at his onlookers. Several of them raise their glasses to him as he wades past them, and he vows to return to them after his business is complete. 

Speaking of business…

He slips into the shadows and nods to a set of burly fellows who look like disfigured cousins of a Judoon as they pass him. They grunt at him.

He recognizes some of the other alien species and some specific individuals, but they ignore him, so he ignores them right back. 

“Took you long enough,” his contact says to him, rolling his eyes, once Javic arrives beside him. “Half of this club wants to fuck you now.”

Javic smirks. “As they should,” he says cheerfully. “I’m an equal opportunity lover. There’s quite a lot of room in my bed.”

His contact inches closer, draping a possessive hand along Javic’s shoulder before sliding it down his chest and between his legs to grab at the bulge in his trousers and squeezing. Javic’s perpetually half-hard cock stirs as he hisses, his own hand sneaking under his contact’s thin shirt to tweak at his nipples.

Their lips meet in a hot bruising kiss, Javic pressing his hips forward, both men moaning.

Then, as quickly as they came together - sadly, pun unintended and actually untrue - into their embrace, they break apart. 

“I’ve missed you,” the contact says, grinning wickedly, his chest heaving. “Everything’s more fun with you around.”

Now Javic rolls his eyes. “I’m not the one who left the Time Agency as a wanted fugitive. You’re the reason we have to meet like this.” He gestures around him to the shadowy corner.

“Yeah,” croons his contact. “But you  _ enjoy _ clubs and places like this.” And his smirk widens when Javic grins as well. “We both do.”

“Any luck?” asks Javic. “Did you find anything?”

His contact shakes his head. “Nothing on the last few planets I checked. I even traveled back as far as a few centuries.” A beat. “Nothing. Not even a whisper.”

Sighing, Javic drags a hand through his hair. He taps his foot against the dirty, drink-stained tile. “So that’s the entirety of the Melosi galaxy to cross off the list, which is getting shorter and shorter by the way.” He shoots his contact a look. “Thanks for trying.”

“You’re paying me.” His contact shrugs before nodding towards Javic expectantly. “Speaking of.”

Javic scoffs a laugh. “You’ll never forget, will you?”

“I never joke about one thing,” his contact replies, “and that’s money.”

“Wish you would,” grumbles Javic. “You’re not cheap.”

“But efficient.”

“Not so far.”

Javic taps a button on his vortex manipulator, which emits a long, low beep. His contact has peeled back the leather flap on his vortex manipulator and is watching it patiently. He blinks slowly when it begins blinking with a red light before tapping away at a few buttons of his own. Finally, he nods.

“Payment received.”

“Don’t spend it all in one place,” Javic says wryly. “And also try not to get spotted this time? They sent us after the trail of bodies you left in the Viking era back on Earth. Had us stomping through mud for days.” He wrinkles his nose. “Had to burn my boots and replace them.”

His contact barks sharply. “Noted.” Then he hesitates. “Suppose I couldn’t tempt you for a drink, maybe a romp in the sheets?”

“Next time,” Javic promises, slapping his contact on the ass, before turning to slip from the shadows. Just before he does, he turns back once. “Take care of yourself, and let me know-”

“I’ll let you know when I find Gray,” replies the man who - in another timeline - would be going by John Hart in the future, winking at Javic. “You’ll blow me out of gratitude then. Maybe even throw in a rimjob.” He leers.

“Count on it,” calls Javic cheerfully over his shoulder as he finally walks away.

* * *

Javic’s final stop is one he doesn’t expect, one he doesn’t even realize, until he finds himself stepping onto the grey cement sidewalk outside of Torchwood Tower in 2006. 

He doesn’t know why he’s here. It’s a stupid idea. He could be tracked by Torchwood. Torchwood could have its operatives swoop down on him and take him captive, and he doubts they’ll be as courteous or accommodating as they are under Ianto Jones as director.

He’s literally right outside their headquarters, easy prey. His skin prickles at the thought of venturing inside their headquarters, not out of fear but out of excitement. It’s daring, risky, idiotic, exactly what he loves doing.

He’s Javic Thane. Idiocy is ingrained in his blood. He’s heard how his parents met. (And he squashes down the brief flicker of sadness at the thought of them.)

Yet shaking his head, he crosses to the opposite street, weaving past the cars that race by and smirking at them when drivers roll down their windows to yell at him. 

Javic sits on a bench outside. According to his vortex manipulator, it’s noon on an early spring day. These humans ancient enough to be his ancestors should be slipping from their glass skyscrapers at any moment for lunch. He watches the passersby curiously.

A harried-looking woman stalks past with a flock of shopping bags in hand, her phone tucked under her ear. Men in business suits - none filling them as well as Ianto - wander away, engrossed in their conversation about numbers and statistics. Every once in a while, a pigeon will fly to rest before Javic’s propped-out legs, and he’ll stomp his feet to scare them away.

He doesn’t like those demonic-looking birds.

Finally, people begin milling out of Torchwood Tower, and Javic lifts his head. He watches a statuesque woman with carefully-coiffed blond hair stalk out in impressive heels, barking orders into her phone, not unlike the woman who had passed by Javic before. This new woman slips into a sleek black car that pulls up beside the building, but the car idles for a moment, almost as if it’s waiting for someone.

Then out from Torchwood Tower slips a slightly gangly, baby-faced young man in a suit who tugs faintly at Javic’s memory. 

Javic’s eyes narrow. Abruptly, he realizes that this young man is Ianto Jones, in his early twenties, barely a little less than a decade younger than Javic. There is no beard, the skin is smooth, the facial features are not as defined, and the suit is quite plain, but the blue eyes are just the same, shining with intelligence, the correct shade of blue. 

Javic’s heart stutters, and his grip tightens around the edge of the bench as he watches Ianto glance between the car and the exit of the building. 

After a moment or two, another woman emerges from the building, a gorgeous young Black woman in a practical pantsuit with a deep purple blouse, the exact shade that Javic’s seen Ianto wear a suit in before when he’s popped in for a quick look - which he doesn’t do often, of course, and Ianto never sees him. This new woman greets Ianto with a sunny smile, and he returns it, grinning widely in a way that’s worlds different from the smiles Ianto gives Javic. 

This smile...Ianto looks lovestruck, eyes glowing. He looks like he believes the entire world shines only for this woman who extends a hand to pass him a bulky silver device, an even more primitive cell phone, Javic realizes. He quirks a curious eyebrow.

The woman makes as if to return to the building, but Ianto quickly reaches out for her and tugs her in for a quick kiss, trailing his hand along her jaw affectionately before releasing her. She steps back, saying something that causes Ianto to laugh. Then she retreats back inside Torchwood Tower.

Ianto pockets the device and then opens a door to the car and slips inside. The car peels back into the street and drives away, leaving Javic with a clear view of the double doors that lead inside Torchwood Tower.

If he headed across the street, he could walk straight in.

But he won’t. The man he came to see has left.

Javic rises to his feet, stretching his legs out. He smooths out his fingers before realizing his palms are stained with the perfect imprints of the pattern of the bench from where he pressed his hands too forcefully into the metal.

He returns to the alley he materialized in with a swirl of questions on his mind. Many of them are half-formed fragments, but the most prominent one remains about the woman.

Who is she, this woman who made Ianto Jones light up the way he did, and what happened to her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that fed your Javic and Javic pining appetite.... I promise Ianto pops up around next week! Wooooo! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After several weeks without a peep of Javic Thane, Ianto allows himself to be dragged to a pub by Gwen, Owen, and Tosh...only for the sudden appearance of a certain Time Agent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!!!! Here is this chapter, which is low-key filler but also like bonding time, and I hope you enjoy it?

A week goes by painfully slowly, and soon, it’s been three weeks since Ianto’s seen heads or tails of Javic Thane. Not even two aborted alien invasions, a visit from the Judoon, and one explosion in the labs that leads to an evacuation can keep Ianto’s thoughts from straying to that twinkly-eyed, smirking bastard.

That Thursday night, during dinner at her house - minus Martha and Mickey who had previous obligations, Rhys away with Anwen, Gwen tells Ianto that he’s “been a bit mopey” for the last few weeks. Her tone is teasing, but her frown is clear.

“I am not!" protests Ianto. “I am fine. I am normal. I have been nothing but normal these last few weeks.”

“If that’s what you want to tell yourself, mate,” Owen mutters under his breath, and Ianto glares at him.

“Name one instance,” Ianto demands, “where I have acted ‘mopey,’” - and he brings up his hands to finger-quote - “this week. Nay, even this last month.”

“You refused to come to dinner this week,” points out Gwen immediately.

“I’m here now,” Ianto retorts. 

“We had to blackmail you to come. Tosh used an alien lock on all the coffee machines at work as well as one on the machine in your flat,” Owen adds, rolling his eyes. “All of us are suffering now.”

Ianto barely blinks. “I’m afraid that Tosh will be receiving an official memo tomorrow about the misuse of alien artifacts in the workplace.”

“It was necessary,” Tosh replies, “but can’t you see that we’re worried about you, Ianto? You haven’t been acting like yourself at all! You stayed late in your office the entirety of the last two weeks.”

“I’m pretty sure he slept in there one night,” Owen chimes in, taking a sip of his whisky.

“I am fine,” insists Ianto, gritting his teeth. “There is nothing for you to worry about.” His fingers pick at a loose thread on the cloth napkin beneath his plate, his body incredibly tense. He doesn’t like this confrontation one bit.

Gwen’s doe eyes narrow at him. “Well, then. If you’re fine, you wouldn’t say no to going to the pub with Owen, Tosh, and I tomorrow night.” Her brows are furrowed, her expression practically challenging him to say no. “That is, if you’re not too busy.”

“I-” begins Ianto before he’s cut off by Tosh.

“I’ve seen your schedule for the rest of the week and spoken to Donna as well,” Tosh tells him. “Donna understands that sometimes even the boss needs a break and has cleared tomorrow accordingly.”

“But… you don’t even want to go until the night,” protests Ianto weakly. His mouth is dry, and he has a feeling that he’s about to be coerced into agreeing. 

“So you are free!” Gwen says. “And you have no reason to say no, now.”

“Fine,” Ianto grumbles. “Fine, I’ll come.” He lifts his hands from the napkin and clasps them tightly in his lap before glancing up to find that Gwen is smiling.

“Good,” she says before her eyes soften. “I’m sorry that we have to coerce you, Ianto. But we’re worried. It seems like ever since you met that Time-”

“I understand,” Ianto interrupts hastily, but he notices Owen’s eyes narrow and Tosh look considerate. “I appreciate your concern, Gwen. I really do.” He slumps slightly against his chair, picking up his fork to push at the few scraggly green beans left on his plate. “Thank you.”

* * *

Their regular pub is several, _several_ blocks away from the Torchwood Institute, far away enough that none of their employees will stumble upon them. Hopefully. (You can never leave Torchwood at home, but you can at least leave it behind or a bit further away.)

It’s your average pub, wood everywhere, scratched-up tables pushed in corners and along the back, a long bar with several telly screens where patrons are watching reruns of the last rugby match, noisy chatter with the occasional shriek of laughter, a dartboard hung on a back wall, darts scattered on the floor beneath it. 

Ianto, Gwen, Owen, and Tosh sit at a table all the way in the back corner, right next to the bathrooms. They have a direct view of the pub entrance - a necessity when you’ve been Torchwood as long as they have - and are several meters from the back exit. 

“See, isn’t this better than staying in your office all night?” Gwen asks Ianto as he glances around the pub. Her fingers are unconsciously picking at a splinter in the table, nails digging into a crack.

Ianto rolls his eyes. “We’ve been here for ten minutes, Gwen. How am I to know?” Owen’s at the bar ordering their drinks, and Tosh disappeared the moment they arrived at the pub. He’s pretty sure she’s in the back alley, glued to her smartphone as she texts her lab assistants still back at the Torchwood Institute. 

Gwen wrinkles her nose, but before she can retort, Owen is back, setting drinks on the table. “A bitter for Tosh and beers for the three of us.” His gaze lands on Tosh’s empty seat. “And where has my wife gone now?” A moment later, he sighs in realization. “Christ, she’s outside in the alley talking to R&D, isn’t she?” He strides away quickly, heading for the back exit, leaving Gwen bent over giggling and Ianto smirking.

“He’s changed much, hasn’t he?” Gwen says softly. “Tosh has been good for him.”

Nodding in agreement, Ianto reaches for his beer, smoothing his fingers across the cold glass. “You should have seen him when he first joined in 2010, when I first recruited him,” he tells Gwen not for the first time. “It was just after Katie died. He was so angry and defensive at the world, and I recognized that. I understood that,” - he inhales sharply - “because that’s how I felt after Lisa.” He snorts, expression becoming a bit more amused. “Owen dragged me into far too many pub brawls, but I suppose that’s what most twenty-seven-year-olds would have been doing.”

She nods in understanding, reaching for her own beer. “I can’t believe they’ve only been married for three years.”

“They’ve been together for five,” corrects Ianto. “Only took the two of them five years to work out their feelings towards each other. For a genius and a medic, they were quite oblivious.” He smiles. “But now they’re quite happy together.”

Gwen reaches out a warm hand to cover Ianto’s. “You deserve that as well,” she says softly. “I have Rhys. Tosh and Owen have each other as do Martha and Mickey. You deserve someone of your own as well.”

“You sound like Rhi,” Ianto notes, rolling his eyes. “As I keep saying, I’m fine. Dating is hard, especially as the director of Torchwood. What am I supposed to tell them? I help run a top-secret alien-fighting organization that’s beyond the government and the police?” He shakes his head, taking his first sip of beer. “I’m also pretty sure telling them that I’m a bloody civil servant won’t work either. No civil servant has my hours or pay.”

“That’s why you look for someone in Torchwood,” says Gwen patiently, and Ianto’s eyes widen, but Gwen forges on before he can protest. “There’s plenty of nice women and men who work with us. What about Madeline from Alien Acquistions? She’s single and gorgeous and quite kind. She always compliments your tie.”

“No,” Ianto replies. “No, no, no, no, _no!_ We’re not doing this.”

“What are we not doing?” Tosh asks as she and Owen walk back towards the table, hands linked together tightly. They take their seats, and Tosh smiles at Ianto. 

“Finding Ianto a girlfriend or boyfriend,” Gwen tells them. “I was just suggesting Madeline-”

“From Alien Acquisitions?” Owen presumes. “Yes, I know her. She has bloody hug ti-” He trails off when Tosh glares at him.

“She’s a huge Star Wars fan as well,” adds Tosh. “She told me about how she goes to all these comic conventions to meet the actors. She has a poster signed by Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher.”

Ianto’s definitely not slightly jealous.

“Still,” he reasons carefully, “how inappropriate would it be for me to date one of my employees? That can’t go over well with HR.”

Owen shrugs. “You could always just ask HR instead of assuming.” Then he snaps his fingers. “What about Daffyd?”

“The senior researcher?” Gwen asks, and Owen shakes his head, dragging his bottle closer and handing Tosh her bitter.

“No, the field agent,” he replies and continues on, but Ianto tunes him out.

He feels the skin on the back of his neck prickling, and he doesn’t know why, but he chooses that exact moment to lift his head and glance up. His mouth drops.

There, across the pub, having just entered and making his way towards the bar, is Javic Thane, dressed in jeans and the same leather jacket from the first time they met.

“I’ll be back,” Ianto says hastily to Gwen, Owen, and Tosh, but they pay him no mind, too preoccupied with their conversation about the Daffyd the field agent. He hurries forward, pushing past other patrons, until he reaches the bar. To Javic, who is busy flirting with the bartender: “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” 

Javic turns, and his eyes widen with surprise. “Ianto!” he cries excitedly, reaching one hand for Ianto’s wrist. “I found you!”

“It’s been three weeks since you were last here,” Ianto says in disbelief, allowing himself to be pulled against Javic’s solid body, one of Javic’s arms wrapping around Ianto’s waist as if they’re dating.

“Sorry, about that,” Javic replies, expression becoming sheepish. “I got a bit busy, and then I meant to jump forward to your time but might have jumped a bit _too forward._ ” He winks, fingers rubbing distractedly at the same of Ianto’s back, and _fuck,_ three weeks were not long enough for Ianto to forget just how amazing he smells. “Tracked you down with this.” He taps his vortex manipulator.

“Of course you did,” says Ianto, rolling his eyes, and Javic smirks, leaning forward, gaze dark and lustful. He looks like he wants to devour Ianto whole. 

“What do you say we get out of here?” Javic asks, his hand slipping lower to grab Ianto’s arse. Ianto shakes his head.

“No, you just arrived, and I’m already here with friends.”

“Ooooh!” Javic says, bouncing on his heels, smirk transforming to a wide grin. “Could I meet them?”

Every instinct in Ianto screams for him to say no, but when his gaze lands on Javic’s wide puppy eyes, he says, “Fine. Follow me.”

* * *

As soon as Javic first smirks at them, Owen’s eyes narrow in recognition. “You’re the Time Agent,” he says. “You’re the one who’s been making Jonesy so-”

“I think you’ll find that rumors move quickly at Torchwood,” Ianto says loudly, cutting Owen off. Thankfully, Javic doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Yes, yes, they do,” Gwen agrees, enthusiastically shaking the hand Javic offers once he takes a seat beside Ianto. “The rumors of your attractiveness were certainly not exaggerated.” And she blushes faintly, ducking her head, when Javic winks at her.

“You must be Gwen,” Javic says politely. “Ianto’s mentioned a lot about you. He said you were like a sister to him.”

“Oh, did he?” Straightening up, she raises her eyebrows at Ianto, who sighs. He’s going to be hearing about this later. “Ianto can be very complimentary, but he hasn’t said a thing about you to us. Has been rather tight-lipped, in fact.”

Javic pouts at Ianto. “I wouldn’t mind if you told everyone about how great I am in bed.” His eyes glitter with amusement. “I’ve certainly told many about your co-”

“I think that’s enough,” Ianto says quickly and sternly, the tips of his ears burning. He nods towards Tosh in the corner. “That’s Toshiko Sato, the head of R&D, and the surly bastard next to her is her husband Owen, our medical director.”

They all ignore Owen’s protests. When Javic reaches over the table to shake Tosh’s hand, his sleeve slips down, and Tosh’s eyes land on his vortex manipulator, widening. Javic notices and laughs. “It’s a thing of beauty,” he says with just the slightest hint of pride. “Time traveling and teleportation capabilities. They only issue these babies out to Time Agents.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting a look at the internal mechanisms,” Tosh replies, sounding like she’s drooling. “They must be miniscule.” Her fingers twitch, likely for a small screwdriver, and Owen laughs, pressing closer to his wife.

“Maybe later,” Javic replies, winking at her. He taps the table with his fingers. “So how long have you known Ianto?”

“At least a decade,” Gwen replies. “Well, more like eight years for me but a decade for Tosh and Owen.”

Tosh nods. “Ianto recruited us when he began to rebuild Torchwood back in 2010.”

“Oh?” Javic leans forward, looking intrigued. “I didn’t know _he_ built Torchwood.” He shoots a glance at Ianto. “What was he like when you met him?”

Gwen chuckles. “He certainly loved suits just as much back then.”

Ianto springs to his feet suddenly, blushing fiercely. It feels wrong to have these two disparate parts of his life colliding. “I need to go to the loo,” he says. “I’ll be back.” He stumbles away, aware of the eyes burning into his back.

He enters the bathroom and does his business before washing his hands. Briefly, he remembers fucking Javic against a wall in another bathroom a few weeks ago and has to think about the Judoon who visited earlier this week to will his flagging erection down.

When he exits the bathroom, he’s met by a dark-eyed Javic, who drags him into the back alley behind the pub and pins him to the wall.

“What is it with you and alleys?” Ianto asks, bewildered, before Javic’s lips press down hard on his, fingers tangling in his hair. Immediately, Ianto brings his hands up to clutch at Javic’s back, pulling him closer against his own body.

Javic’s mouth is soft, warm, and addicting underneath his, and Ianto moans into the kiss as Javic uses his other hand to press his thumb to the skin just above Ianto’s collarbone. He nips at Ianto’s lower lip, the kiss growing deeper. A solid thigh slips between Ianto’s legs, but before they can rut against each other, Javic steps back, looking just as dishevelled as Ianto feels.

Javic clears his throat with a quick cough. “Just felt like doing that.” He shrugs.

“Well…” Ianto offers him a pleased smile, which Javic returns, setting off explosive sparks through Ianto’s body. “As much as I enjoyed that, I think we should return to my friends. We shouldn’t keep them waiting too long.” He steps towards the door.

  
  
“Wait,” Javic says suddenly and pulls Ianto close again. 

He captures Ianto’s mouth for a sweet, patient kiss, his hand coming to cup Ianto’s cheek briefly. His thumb sweeps gently over Ianto’s cheekbone, his lips tender, the warmth of his breath mingling with Ianto’s. 

Then he steps back, leaving Ianto bewildered and panting just as much as before, eyes widen.

“Now we can go,” Javic says, tone cheerful, and continues inside like he didn’t just almost completely unravel Ianto with a single kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's the reunion we all have been waiting for...I hope you liked it! Next week will be the last chapter of this first arc, and there maybe be a one or two week break before the next arc cause I'll be taking finals, babey!
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto share a rooftop conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the last chapter of smlc. 
> 
> JK, it's the last chapter of this arc, featuring sweet janto moments! After this, I'll be taking a three-week hiatus for finals and also to write more fics and more chapters for this fic and the next arc!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!

After they leave the pub and Gwen, Tosh, and Owen head to their respective cars, not without shooting curious glances towards Javic and Ianto, Ianto asks Javic to come back to his flat.

He doesn’t necessarily mean it in a “let’s fuck” way, more like a “let me make you coffee” way, but he knows how Javic took it, judging by his laviscious smirk.

Surprisingly, however, Javic actually refuses his offer. “Perhaps we could go to the rooftop of your building,” he suggests instead. “I like standing on rooftops.”

Ianto sighs. “Of course you do, you dramatic bloody bastard.” He starts walking towards the main road. “But Gwen drove me here, so we don’t have any transportation. Nor are we walking. I’ll call a taxi.”

“No need,” Javic tells him, lifting up his left wrist to show off his vortex manipulator. When Ianto begins to protest, he raises a sly eyebrow. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Eventually, after a long stretch of silence during which Javic’s hopeful expression begins to fall, Ianto finally nods. “Yes,” he says. “I trust you.” He moves closer to Javic, shivering when Javic presses him against his solid body, and allows Javic to wrap an arm around him. Mischievously, Ianto shoves his cold nose against the soft skin of Javic’s neck, grinning as Javic hisses, and takes a long sniff of the other man’s heady pheromones. He sucks a lingering bruise in the hollow of Javic’s throat and lifts his head to admire his handiwork.

They disappear from the empty Cardiff street in a swirl of golden time, and Ianto inhales sharply as his skin prickles and his stomach lurches. He fights back the urge to be sick, but just before he loses control of the contents of his stomach, the world remateralizes around them, resembling Ianto’s living room.

Immediately, alarms begin blaring. Ianto glares at Javic.

“You couldn’t have teleported us _outside_ my flat?” he asks. 

Javic grins and shrugs nonchalantly. “Oops?” Ianto’s glare doesn’t lessen in intensity as he rushes to the advanced security panel built into the wall. If he’s fast enough, he can override it before an alert is sent to Torchwood.

His fingers move painfully swiftly over the holographic keys, and when the alarms finally quiet, he shuts the panel with a sigh. He turns back to Javic, shaking his head, only to find that the other man is already helping himself to his alcohol. “Hey!”

“You don’t have anything I’m particularly craving right now,” Javic complains.

  
  
“Then quit rifling through my liquor!”

“I can get us some good alcohol,” Javic offers, waggling his eyebrows at Ianto. “Meet me on the roof.” Then he disappears into another whirlpool of gold, thankfully not setting off Ianto’s disabled alarms.

“Fucking Time Agent,” Ianto murmurs under his breath. He locks his flat door behind him and trudges up to the rooftop only to find that Javic is already there, a sleek bottle of whisky lounging in his arms, his legs dangling over the edge of a raised wall. “Fucking time travel. That’s just cheating.” Raising his voice: “How long were you even gone?”

“Ten minutes tops,” Javic replies cheerfully. “Got us some Kellerian whisky. One bottle retails for about fifty thousand credits in the Vegas Galaxies. They age barrels full for three centuries in caves underneath the Kellerian moonlight. Something about the planet’s gravitational orbit makes their whisky taste like Earth lemons.”

Ianto does like sour things.

He strides forward and clambers onto the wall, taking a seat beside Javic, their thighs pressed against each other. Before them, Cardiff glows at night, the various lights of the city smeared across the bay like blurry watercolor. 

Christ, Ianto loves this city. He’d never liked it - or Newport - when growing up as a kid, but after London, after coming back to rebuild the Torchwood Institute… he doesn’t think he can ever leave. This city, like the Rift, is like that; they get into your blood, keep you rooted here.

Skillfully, Javic thumbs a button on his vortex manipulator to loosen the seal on the whisky and offers the bottle to Ianto for the first sip.

Cautiously, he takes it, lowering the bottle to his lips and tipping it back. The first splash of whisky is sour against his tongue yet tinged with an odd sweetness that is reminiscent of oranges. The rest is the anticipated burn of the whisky down his throat, spreading warmth through his body. 

Ianto sets the bottle down and offers it to Javic, who shakes his head.

“I’d rather taste it like this,” he says, and then he bends his head towards Ianto and kisses the burning of the whisky away from his lips. Ianto surges forward, mindful of the risky maneuvers they are making balanced on the literal edge of a roof, one hand scrabbling backwards for the wall to keep them from tipping forward.

Finally, Javic leans back, breathing hard. He licks his lips, a movement Ianto’s gaze zeroes in on. “It doesn’t taste bad,” he surmises. He measures the taste against the sip he takes from the bottle. “Certainly tastes better on your lips.”

Ianto hates Javic Thane. (No, no, he doesn’t.)

His brow furrows. “Where did you even get that bottle?” he asks. “How much does a Time Agent get paid?”

Javic shrugs again. “Enough.” Yet the wickedness to his grin suggests otherwise.

“Whose stolen alcohol am I drinking?” Ianto questions, sighing. “They’re not going to come after me or Torchwood, are they, because I’m not going to war over whisky.”

“Don’t worry!” says Javic. “The Kellerian queen died ages ago. The empire fell not much later. I stole this on one of my last missions and kept it stashed away for an occasion like this.” Despite his reassurances, Ianto is not entirely assured, but he rolls his eyes and takes another sip of whisky.

“What do you even do as a Time Agent?” he asks conversationally, shooting a curious glance over at Javic.

“Oh, you know.” Javic hums, swinging his foot through the air. “Preserve the timeline, restore the timeline. Prevent time loops and paradoxes.” He reaches for the bottle, which Ianto hands over easily.

“You don’t know, do you?” Ianto surmises and receives an amused snort from Javic, who nods.

“Not a clue,” he confirms. “I just show up where I’m told to, do what my boss instructs.” He tilts his head, gazing off into the dark night sky. “Maglin. Hot, if you have a thing for older women.” He leers. “Or just people….great ass! Bit bitchy.” A beat. “I’m afraid she doesn’t like me very much.”

“I wonder why,” Ianto says dryly. “As the leader of an organization like the Time Agency myself, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t value blindminded obedience.”

“Believe me,” Javic purrs, “it definitely isn’t blindminded obedience. That’s just me looking out for me and my bank account.” He turns to Ianto, nestling closer. “Blindminded obedience is me on my knees for you, gagging on your cock.” His eyes have gone dark and lusty again, and he drinks very purposefully from the bottle, lips wrapped tightly around the long neck, just as Ianto immediately imagines them around his cock.

Said cock stirs in his trousers, and he resists the urge to press the palm of his hand between his legs. Cheeks flaming despite the cool nighttime air, he says, “Everything’s just sex with you, then.”

“ _Sex, sex, sex,_ ” Javic sings, voice drifting out over the city. He grins mischievously. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“Some people in this century would say so,” replies Ianto. His brow furrows. “They call it hypersexuality or the like.”

“Bah.” The other man grimaces, handing the whisky bottle over. His fingers brush faintly against Ianto’s as Ianto takes the bottle, Javic’s skin warm and soft. Ianto wants to hold on for longer, wants to reach for Javic. “That’s the problem with you people. You’re all so primitive, with your need for labels and neat ordering. You can’t fit people into boxes. You can’t try and close them in and then act surprised when people don’t ‘conform.’” 

Ianto finds himself leaning in close as Javic rants, drawn in by his pursed lips and impassioned speech and brilliantly striking fierce blue eyes. He’s a beautiful man, and Ianto wants him in his bed - again. 

Blinking, Ianto forces himself to pay attention to Javic’s words and finds himself nodding in agreement. “What is it like in the fifty-first century?” he asks when Javic calms a bit.

He wakes a hazy hand into the ether. “Certainly no labels,” he explains. “I dunno… it’s a bit tricky to make someone who is not from my time understand. But it feels… freer, happier. Most people are able to be their true selves.” He sighs. “Mind you, there is still prejudice and other bullshit, but it’s less, not often heard of.”

“Oh,” Ianto says and tries to imagine growing up in a world, in a society like that, but he can’t. “Right, I suppose I have that to look forward to.”

Javic grins brilliantly. “Oh, you’ll like the future, Ianto Jones. You’re a timeless man.” 

The whisky burns down Ianto’s throat, and then he shoves the bottle between his thighs. He’s not sure if Javic’s words are meant as a compliment. When he turns to the other man to ask, Javic is framed in an almost ethereal light, a single dark curl brushed down against his forehead. Ianto wants to sweep it aside, card a hand through Javic’s hair, and he finds his hand half-way lifted without his permission. He quickly disguises the attempt, rubbing at his chin in what he thinks is a casual way. Javic watches this all in amusement.

“Oh,” sighs Ianto.

“Yeah,” agrees Javic. “The whisky’s hit, hasn’t it?” Ianto nods, and Javic’s grin grows wider. “It’s quite potent. It’s also usually faster, but I suppose passing the bottle means we’ve been drinking less than we think we are.”

“How come you don’t seem to be affected as severely?” Ianto asks, and Javic chortles.

“I can hold my alien liquor,” he teases, and Ianto pouts at him. Javic makes grabby hands at Ianto. “Come here.”

Ianto does. He leans closer and allows Javic to press a light hand under his chin to lift his head. Javic peers at Ianto before slumping forward to brush his lips against Ianto’s in a delightfully soft yet slow kiss.

Kissing Javic against the Cardiff skyline, with liquor that feels like moonlight burning through his veins, is an otherworldly experience. Javic’s lips feel like velvet against his. Strong fingers wind in Ianto’s hair, scratching softly at his scalp. Ianto shivers, sparks leaping up his spine, and presses further into the kiss.

He can’t imagine anything better than this, but too soon, it’s over. Javic leans back, the pressure of his mouth on Ianto’s suddenly gone, leaving him yearning for it, for Javic’s fingers brushing against his skin.

He stifles a whine, and his cheeks burn almost immediately. Clearly, this alien whisky has lowered his inhibitions a lot more than normal whisky does. 

Finally, Ianto clears his throat with a quiet cough. “How’d you join the Time Agency anyways?” he tries.

For a brief moment, Javic looks stricken, and Ianto’s heart flutters painfully in his chest, regretting asking. Then the other man quickly recomposes his expression and shrugs. “Funny story. I was the first one to sign up for the Time Agency from my home. The Boeshane Penninsula.” He chuckles to himself, ducking his head. “A human colony, a tiny place. Most have never even heard of it.” A beat. “They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me. I was a poster boy.”

“So you were just as vain then as you are now,” Ianto presumes in a dry voice, causing Javic to chuckle again, but Ianto’s drunk mind keeps slipping over _The Face of Boe,_ which he’s quite sure he heard Martha mention at one point. Perhaps a story from her travels with the Doctor?

“I guess you could say that.” Javic leans back, glancing over towards Ianto. “How did you join Torchwood, all the way in the beginning?”

“I joined Torchwood One, Torchwood London, in 2005,” Ianto explains, words slurring. Even drunk, he knows this story by heart, remembers it well, although it takes him a few faltering tries to get through it. “I worked here in a museum. One day, a woman named Yvonne showed up at my door and told me that a new Viking ship we were unveiling an exhibit soon was infested with aliens. I helped her, and she told me to apply to Torchwood, so I did. I started there not much longer. Turns out she was the director.”

“There’s nothing hotter than a powerful woman,” Javic says appreciatively, sighing, and Ianto nods in agreement. “Did you sleep with her?” His tone is teasing, but Ianto still flinches back before pressing his palms flat against the wool of his trousers. 

He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. Not that Yvonne wasn’t attractive or that I wouldn’t have.” Faintly, he remembers that he technically did, in a way. “I… had a girlfriend at the time.” It takes him a moment to get out the next words: “Her name was Lisa.”

“Was?” Javic eyes him curiously, but there’s something else indecipherable in his striking gaze; Ianto’s too buzzed to make out exactly what. “What’s the story there? She dump you or something?”

“She’s dead,” Ianto replies woodenly. He briefly wonders where the bottle of whisky has been abandoned before remembering that it’s stuck between his thighs. He takes a long swig, relishing the burn down his throat.

Javic’s eyes widen in alarm. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know.”

Ianto waves him off. “It’s alright. Honest mistake.” He shudders. “It’s been a little over a decade anyways.” But time has done nothing to dull the painful twinge to Ianto’s battered heart when he thinks of Lisa; he’d loved her too deeply for that to be effective. “What about you? Any past lovers and their skeletons in your closet?”

“I mean…” Javic looks considerate. “I jump around through time so much that many of the people on my list are now likely dead, and well… being a Time Agent has a surprisingly high mortality rate. There’s some famous celebrities, some monarchs and high-ranking politicians, and then there’s just the unusual.”

“Anyone I would know?” Ianto asks curiously.

“Proust?” offers Javic. 

“The author?”

A nod. “I slept with him a few times.” Javic pauses, deliberating. “He was really immature.”

This startles an amused snort out of Ianto. “ _Really?_ ”

“Oh, yeah. There’s only so many dick jokes a man can take. Like, I appreciate one or two, but twenty? And every time we fuck?” He shakes his head.

Javic continues on chattering about his exes before turning to some vague adventures from the Time Agency, to which Ianto reciprocates with stories from the early years of Torchwood, when the team was essentially just him, Owen, Tosh, and some of UNIT’s soldiers. Eventually, around them, the Cardiff sky begins to lighten, slowly making its way to sunrise. 

After Ianto yawns twice during one of his stories, causing Javic to yawn as well, Ianto decides to call it a night. Or, rather, a morning.

“I think it’s time for me to go to bed,” he tells Javic, who nods in agreement. Together, they slip from the wall, stretching their legs. Ianto hands Javic the empty whisky bottle.

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep it as a souvenir?” he asks, eyes glittering with mischief. He grins toothily when Ianto shakes his head. “Well, then, keep this.” And he slips Ianto a flat silver disk from his pocket that warms under Ianto’s touch.

Ianto turns the disk over in his hand. “What is it?”

“A direct line of contact to me,” Javic says. “If you tap thrice, it will ping my vortex manipulator immediately. So no waiting three more weeks if you want to fuck me again.” His grin widens. Ianto rolls his eyes.

“Of course,” he snarks, stepping back to allow Javic to teleport away, but to his surprise, Javic reaches for Ianto instead and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, briefly brushing a gentle thumb over Ianto’s cheekbone. Then he steps back. 

“See you around, Ianto Jones,” Javic says, snapping Ianto a quick salute, before he disappears from 2020 Cardiff in a burst of gold.

Ianto rubs his thumb over the disk, which hums faintly, before he slips into his own pocket and returns to his flat, pulling the roof access door shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you in three weeks! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto fuck around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....hi?
> 
> I know it's been 6 weeks, doubly more than the time I promised I would have resumed posting, and I have no excuses other than... I finished the entirety of arc two? So that's a solid eight chapters that can post on a direct week-by-week basis. So yay!
> 
> Anyways, thanks to Vi for the ideas and motivation behind this chapter (spoiler - it's mostly smut). Thanks to Annika and Al for editing. Thanks to Kai because... well, no reason, really. You're awesome, and I just wanna honor you. 
> 
> Enjoy!

In the beginning, right after their rooftop tête-à-tête, Javic has a way of popping up around Ianto in Cardiff with a frequency and fervor that eventually stops surprising him.

The third time this occurs, Javic evades Torchwood’s Rift monitor and strolls straight into Ianto’s office, ignoring Donna’s “ _Oi! You can’t go in there!_ ”

Ianto glances up briefly from his paperwork, unruffled by the Time Agent’s sudden appearance. “Can I help you?”

Javic grins cockily at him from where he’s draped dramatically across the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest to emphasize his biceps, hips thrust out. “Hi,” he says with a little wave.

Donna finally barges in, ducking under Javic’s body before turning to glare at him. Even his cheekbones and beautiful twinkling eyes can’t distract Ianto’s fiery-natured secretary; there is a reason he hired Donna beside her recommendations from the tenth incarnation of a certain Time Lord. (Ianto still has _words_ for him for how he treated both Martha and Donna, and he has a feeling that said Doctor has caught on.)

“You have some nerve,” Donna begins, eyes narrowed with a rage that has even Javic leaning back and straightening up, “to barge in somewhere after being specifically told to wait, you twinkly-eyed bastard.”

_Oh,_ so that’s where Ianto picked up that certain turn of phrase. He muffles his snickers to near-silence and carries on scrawling his signature on the stack of mission reports next to him.

“Ianto was expecting me,” Javic argues, nodding towards said man.

“Ianto was expecting no one,” calls Ianto himself, flipping a page in a file. Javic scowls briefly, but Ianto continues, “There is such a device as a phone. You could call ahead. You may be from the future, but I know you know how phones work.”

Both Donna and Javic make to speak, but Ianto finally glances up. He flashes Donna a grateful smile. “Thank you, Donna, but I’ll make sure Javic understands.” She rolls her eyes and whirls around, shutting the door behind her and muttering something about _future men with no manners._ Javic’s scowl returns.

Like a passing cloud, it is gone again, and he strolls forward to slump in the chair before Ianto’s desk, propping his legs on a corner. Ianto pointedly tugs a stack of files out from underneath his boots, but Javic’s gone back to grinning.

“Donna’s right,” Ianto says. “You can’t just keep popping in without warning.”

“Nah,” drawls Javic. “It keeps you on your toes.”

Discreetly, Ianto reaches for the button underneath his desk that activates the perception filter built into his office before he stands. He strides forward to tower over Javic, who shoots him a coquettish look, sprawled lazily in the chair. 

A hand rooted in the collar of Javic’s denim jacket - where does he keep finding twenty-first century clothing that fits him like _that?_ \- yanks him out of the chair and to his feet, and Javic goes easily when Ianto pulls him in for a rough snog, an arm slipping to grab at Javic’s arse, Javic’s fingers tangling in Ianto’s hair and tugging.

Minutes later, when Ianto shoves Javic over his desk and slides his condom-covered cock so deep inside Javic he thinks he could choke on it, Javic begins to regret his abrupt entrance. Or rather, regret it as much as Javic Thane ever regrets anything. (Which, as you might have guessed, is not much.)

“Donna’s right,” Ianto hisses into Javic’s ear, nose ghosting down the curve of his neck as he pins the other man to his desk with his upper body, hips painfully still as Javic whines quietly for him to move, “you need to learn to knock. Doors exist for a reason.” He presses a kiss to Javic’s exposed shoulder, his jacket and shirt crumpled on the floor of Ianto’s office.

“Yes,” Javic grunts back, trying to wiggle back unsuccessfully on Ianto’s cock, but he’s pressed down too solidly and securely. “Doors exist for me to shag you up against the- _fuck!_ ”

Displeased with his reply, Ianto thrusts forward, hips angled to strike at Javic’s prostate, and the retort chokes and dies a stuttering death in the Time Agent’s throat. “You’re getting mouthy,” pants Ianto, beginning a merciless rhythm of battering Javic’s poor prostate. “I should spank you.”

“Didn’t know that that was on the table, but I think you should.” Javic peers back at Ianto over his shoulder, eyes dark, mouth twisted into a leer. “We should get some more use out of this beautiful desk.” Then Ianto fumbles for his cock, and he loses the ability to form words, whining and grunting and moaning some more.

It’s a beautiful symphony of noises, but Ianto doesn’t think Javic’s learned his lesson yet, so the next time his mouth drop opens to sigh in pleasure, Ianto slides his fingers in, effectively gagging the Time Agent.

“You don’t want Donna to hear you,” he whispers roughly into Javic’s ear, feeling the other man sputter and choke against him as he slowly attempts a shake of his head. “My office has thin walls.”

Javic’s whine is muffled around Ianto’s fingers, but he bows his head and arches his back against the desk. Ianto smirks, only snapping his hips faster and wringing even more stifled noises from a glaring Javic, who squeezes tightly around Ianto’s cock.

Ianto spills into the condom with a low groan, hips stuttering to a stop. He hoists Javic up from the desk to slump against a standing Ianto, effectively impaled on his cock, and slides his fingers free to reach back for Javic’s own cock. The Time Agent’s head lolls back against Ianto’s shoulder before he comes over Ianto’s hand with a defiant shout.

When they’ve wiped themselves down - and Ianto’s taken the alien cleaning spray to every possible surface in his office, Javic smiles tiredly up at Ianto, tugging his clothes back into place. “I’ve been a Time Agent long enough to be able to know when a perception filter’s been activated.”

“You didn’t notice last time.” Ianto smooths his shirt back down into his trousers and straightens his tie.

Javic shrugs. “Well, now I know what to look for.” He folds back the cuffs of his denim jacket, hand going briefly to touch his vortex manipulator, to ensure its presence on Javic’s wrist. Ianto’s noticed that before, the way it acts like a security blanket of a kind for Javic.

He wonders what would happen if it failed, leaving Javic stranded in a random time, and decides that he doesn’t want to see that happen to the high-flying Time Agent.

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson about knocking,” he says to Javic, curling a hand around his wrist as Javic reaches for the door. He pulls the other man in for a quick kiss.

“Doors are unnecessary barriers,” replies Javic nonchalantly. “They don’t stop me.”

Still he knocks every time he enters Ianto’s office from then on.

* * *

Of course, he gets his revenge on Ianto, several weeks later.

Ianto walks into his flat after the end of a long day at Torchwood, which started with a Weevil terrorizing children on a local playground and ended with a giant chemical fire in one of the R&D labs.

He’s exhausted, but when he toes off his boots neatly, hanging his coat on a peg next to the door, and finally enters his kitchen, he finds Javic sitting on the counter, drinking from a bottle of wine Rhiannon gifted him last Christmas. (There’s a recurring theme here; he’s a difficult man to shop for sometimes, so many in his life default to buying him expensive alcohol.)

“How did you bypass the alarm?” asks Ianto tiredly.

Javic taps his trusty vortex manipulator. “Hacked it. Figured you didn’t want to come running.” He takes another swig from the near-empty bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Ianto wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“That was kind of you,” he replies.

“Long day at work?” Javic asks.

His shoulders slump as he sighs. “The longest.” Briefly, he wonders why he and Javic traded their mutual mystery to sound like a couple who live together, which is a completely ridiculous thought. He snorts and shoves it out of mind before reaching for the bottle, fingers brushing against Javic’s, and taking a swig to empty it. He sets it on the far end of the counter. Eventually, he admits, “I’m not entirely sure if I have the energy to keep up with you tonight.”

Javic’s eyes glint mischievously. “Don’t worry, I’ll do all the work.”

Ianto’s regretting Javic’s promise some time later when he’s slumped bonelessly across his bed, Javic’s head between his legs as he mouths at Ianto’s balls, fingers rubbing and squeezing at the head of his cock.

“Please, _please,_ ” cries Ianto, panting, fingers fisting in his wrinkled sheets. His legs are folded aimlessly at odd directions, and he’s covered in a light sheen of sweat; Javic’s wicked mouth has kept him on the precipice of orgasm for what seems like an eternity, but every time Ianto begins to teeter over, Javic pulls back.

“Just keeping you on your toes,” Javic teases, tongue darting out to tease at the sensitive skin of Ianto’s taint and abruptly, Ianto remembers the afternoon in his office and wants to _scream._ Javic’s grip around Ianto’s ankle tightens, fingers trailing over ticklish spots that cause him to shiver. “All you have to do is lie back and take it. Can you do that?” He smiles up at Ianto like the smug arsehole that he is.

“That’s it,” Ianto grumbles, sighing as Javic moves his mouth higher and higher. “I’m getting you banned from the Torchwood Institute.”

“Too late.” And before Javic can elaborate on why exactly it’s too late, he leans forward to deepthroat Ianto’s entire cock, and finally, Ianto’s coming and coming down his throat with a loud shout. 

Once Ianto has recovered some of his wits, he lifts his head lazily from his pillow to glance at Javic. “Do you want me to take care of that for you?” He gestures vaguely towards Javic’s own weeping cock, but the lack of grace to his hand and the fact that it flops in the wrong direction indicates he’s really in no state to give Javic a handjob.

Javic shakes his head. “I’ve got a better plan,” he says and positions himself above Ianto, pinning the other man to the bed. He slicks up his cock and uses Ianto’s release to thrust easily between Ianto’s parted thighs, bending down to snog Ianto aimlessly.

Ianto snakes a loose hand around Javic’s neck, too tired to do anything other than keeping his mouth moving against Javic’s and shifting every so often to allow Javic’s cock more - or less - to thrust against.

It’s a moment cast in hazy light, the lamps in Ianto’s bedroom dim, the moon shining in faintly through the gap in the curtain. They hold each other close. It’s the kind of moment, the kind of memory, remembered like wisps of breath on a cold morning, foggy and quickly gone yet the shape of it lingering fondly. 

Eventually, Javic spills warmth between Ianto’s thighs, grunting into the kiss, and finally slumping against him. “ _Fuck,_ ” he sighs. “I should go. Let you sleep.”

“It’s fucking late,” slurs Ianto, already beginning to slip into that directionless land of comforting darkness known as sleep. “Just stay. Time won’t be going anywhere for you.”

“Yeah,” Javic says finally. “Okay.” He rolls off of Ianto and slides close beside him, tugging the blanket over him. Sleep comes quickly and easily for him.

In the morning, as with their first night together, Ianto wakes to find the bed beside him empty again, and he rolls over to face the wall with a faint smile. But his heart flutters painfully at the thought of how he could have awakened in a warm tangle of limbs. The pillow still smells of Javic’s alluring pheromones.

* * *

The weeks turn into months, 2020 melts into 2021, and before Ianto knows it, he’s known Javic Thane for half a year. He wonders how long it’s been for the Time Agent, who, despite being in his mid- to late twenties, barely shows his age. Every time he shows up around Ianto, his skin is just as flawless and wrinkle-free, his eyes are just as jovial, and his hair is perfectly smoothed into place, with not a single grey showing among the brown. 

Ianto doesn’t know if it’s good genetics or just fifty-first century advancements.

“What more is there in your life?” he asks Javic curiously as they curl against each other, naked despite the blanket covering them, on the rug in Ianto’s living room. Rain lashes against the windows, thunder booming distant. Javic lifts his head lazily to fix Ianto with a narrow-eyed look, and Ianto abruptly realizes how rude he sounded. “I mean, beside me and the Time Agency…”

Thankfully, Javic doesn’t look affronted. He only licks his lips, nestling closer to Ianto. “Not much,” he admits. “I have a few friends. Krim counts as one, I suppose. Clubs, partying, hopping through time. That’s about it.” He shrugs. “That’s how I like it. A hot older man to fuck me boneless and a good-paying job. That’s all I need.” He leers at Ianto, who gets the sense that there’s something Javic’s carefully edging around, one of those slippery dangerous secrets, and he respectfully moves on.

“Cardiff can’t be your ideal destination vacation,” he murmurs offhandedly, resting his nose in Javic’s hair. Javic’s thigh slips between his legs, seeking more skin to press against, but it is entirely nonsexual. After the round of messy, athletic sex they’ve just had, Ianto’s cock can’t muster any further interest. “The weather outside should explain why.”

“I like it.” Javic’s leer softens into a genuine grin. “Where I grew up...it was mostly sand dunes and beaches.” His gaze becomes unfocused, hazy, as if he’s slipping into a memory. “Every once in a while, we’d have storms like these, sand whipping everywhere, and my mom would brew us all strong tea. Well, it wasn’t tea, but it was a similar drink. Anyways, she’d pull my brother and me close to her under blankets, and my dad would join us after he checked all the doors and windows.” His grin fractures only slightly. “In the morning, we would help him clear the sand off everywhere it had snuck in.”

Ianto’s heart squeezes painfully in his chest at the angst in Javic’s expression. He smooths a thumb down Javic’s cheekbone, the man shivering against him, and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Thank you for telling me,” he murmurs against Javic’s skin. 

Javic nods, and then both men go quiet as the storm rages around them. Ianto ponders, idly carding his fingers through Javic’s hair, how this Time Agent managed to slip into his life with such ease, fitting in like he was a missing puzzle piece.

_But that’s just poetic bullshit,_ thinks Ianto wryly. All that youthful optimism and hope and belief in love, the shreds of the belief that Ianto had already loosened his grip on, slipped away when Lisa died, body mangled by the Cybermen. _There’s no such thing as fate, destiny, soulmates, and the like._

Time, the tricky bastard, aims to prove him wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Alsooooooooo, I'm plotting out the rest of arc three soon, so let me know if there's anything more you'd like to see in this fic!
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood faces off against a Sontaran invasion. Javic makes a surprise appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Not much to say! This chapter is rather sweet! Hope you enjoy it!

“ _ Glory for the Sontaran Empire! _ ” screeches the potato-shaped alien, and Ianto would roll his eyes if he weren’t busy blasting bullets from a machine gun at the Sontaran and his comrades. “ _ Sontar-ha! _ ”

“Earth is defended,” Ianto shouts back. “There won’t be any invasions on my watch.” He shoots the ground near the leading Sontaran’s feet and watches him jump back in alarm, snarling. All around Ianto, Torchwood operatives are exchanging fire with other Sontarans while Ianto takes on the main squadron. 

The Sontaran’s bulging eyes narrow, his plasma blaster stilling by his side. “By whom?”

“By Torchwood,” says Ianto, taking down one of the Sontarans with a shot to his rounded skull. His armor takes the brunt of the blow, but he’s still knocked to his back, reminding Ianto of a turtle as he squirms and struggles back to his feet. Ianto ducks back behind the SUV currently providing cover for him and his team. A droplet of sweat trickles down the side of his forehead, and his suit jacket has long been abandoned somewhere in the Welsh countryside. He kneels down, wincing at his sore left leg, and reloads his gun.

As expected, there is no trace of recognition in the Sontaran general’s features when Ianto springs back up. “Torchwood is nothing to stand in the Sontaran Empire’s way,” he snarls. “We will conquer your Earth and spread through this galaxy.”

“A bit arrogant, aren’t you?” Ianto murmurs to himself. Lexa, one of his operatives, overhears this and smiles briefly.

“What are we supposed to do, sir?” she asks, and despite Ianto’s distaste for the formality of  _ sir,  _ now is not the time to correct her. “The Sontarans have pinned us back.”

Ianto nods, thumbing the comm in his ear. “Any progress on the device? Tosh? Mickey?”

A moment later, Mickey is breathing raggedly in his ear. It sounds like the other man has been running across a field. “ _ We’re working on it, Ianto. Tosh is trying to reverse-engineer the Sonataran blueprints we found in the archives, but it’s slow going. _ ”

“Ah.” Ianto grits his teeth in frustration. The sonic device Tosh and Mickey working on to neutralize all Sontaran weapons is their saving grace if they can’t convince the Sontarans to retreat, which, as this battle goes on, is looking more and more likely. “Of all days, why did the Sontarans pick  _ today _ to launch an invasion on Earth? And why did they start with a rural Welsh village?”

He’s saying this to no one in particular, but Lexa chuckles. “I don’t know if there’s any reasoning with a Sontaran, sir.” She looks speculative. “Especially if half the Doctor’s stories are true.”

“Right. Right.” He nods and then rises to his feet. He walks slowly, emerging from behind the safety of the SUV, machine gun held by his side in a gesture of temporary truce, but he makes it no further than ten paces forward when the second SUV behind him explodes, struck with a direct plasma blast.

There are horrified screams and shouts as several Torchwood operatives dive away from the flames while also ducking from the Sontarans’ attacks. Thus far, there have been no casualties on either side, and Ianto doesn’t want to see that streak change.

He fires several bullets at a nearby cluster of Sontarans, sending them scattering for cover. He reaches a hand back to his comm. “Owen, we need you or Martha down on this side. We’ve got several injured agents.”

“ _ What happened? _ ” Owen asks, voice tinny in Ianto’s ear. He sounds distracted, and he probably is, busy bandaging wounds or distributing painkillers. Gwen is somewhere there with him as well, leading her own team of operatives.

“SUV exploded.”

“ _ How? _ ” chimes in a horrified Tosh. “ _ My team retrofitted the vehicles to withstand blasts. _ ”

“Apparently not against Sontaran weapons,” says Ianto. “Plus, I have a feeling that they’re not exactly from around here.”

“ _ No, of course not, Ianto, _ ” Owen mocks. “ _ They’re only bloody aliens. _ ”

Now Ianto rolls his eyes before hastily dropping to the grass to avoid getting blasted in the face. Judging by the acrid scent of burning hair, he wasn’t entirely fast enough. “I mean, I don’t think they’re from  _ now.  _ I think they travelled back in time.”

There’s frustrated sighs from everyone over the comms. Owen’s  _ bloody fucking hell  _ sums up the collective sentiment the best.

“ _ Just a few more minutes, Ianto, _ ” Tosh promises. “ _ I think I found a way to rewire this device to increase its range. _ ”

“Please, Tosh,” Ianto replies. “Just get it working.” His next bullet knocks into the bulky armor of another Sontaran, and honestly, if they weren’t raining plasma blasts on Torchwood or trying to invade Earth, Ianto would laugh at how ridiculous they are.

They are almost as bad as the Judoon.

“Sir?” Lexa asks, having inched up by his side. “What do we do?” There’s a thin bloody line across her forehead that hadn’t been there before.

“Keep holding the Sontaran back,” Ianto tells her. “Hold out-  _ what the fuck? _ ”

Several, several meters away, between the bullets of the Torchwood operatives and the plasma blasts of the Sontaran, materializing from a swirl of golden time, steps a familiar figure. An obnoxious smirk that has never been more endearing to Ianto, hair neatly styled, dressed in more futuristic clothing than usual, two sonic blasters slung at his hip. 

Javic Thane winks at Ianto before turning to the Sontarans, and the commanding voice he uses is one that Ianto has never heard but that still causes molten heat to gather at his core and sends sparks arcing across his spine. “Trying to invade twenty-first century Earth?” he asks the Sontaran general.

The general glares at him. “Who are you? How dare you stand between the Sontarans and the glory of the Sontaran Empire?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Javic’s grin is sharp, his voice sarcastic, although his eyes still crinkle with a hint of amusement. “Time Agent Thane.” He holds up his wrist with his vortex manipulator strapped on, and Ianto watches as the Sontarans hiss amongst themselves. The general’s ugly eyes widen, and he nearly takes half a step back.

Ianto tightens his grip around his gun, watching curiously. Lexa is still beside him before she whispers to him, “Is that him? Your Time Agent?”

When Ianto turns to her in alarm, she is hiding a smile.   
  


“May I remind you that I am still your commanding officer,” Ianto says, frowning, shoulders tense, but her smile only grows. “That is an entirely inappropriate question.”

“That’s also not a no,” Lexa points out, and Ianto blushes brightly. He can hear the speculation beginning between the operatives behind him, but he ignores them, turning back to focus on Javic and the Sontarans.

“You’ve jumped back a century or two too far,” Javic says warningly, stepping even further forward. The general and his closest comrades draw their blasters and aim them towards Javic, and Ianto draws in a breath even as he admires the strong curve of Javic’s back. And his broad shoulders. And that shapely arse in those trousers.

Essentially, Ianto doesn’t want to see his… friend blasted to pieces before him.

“Why do you care, Time Agent?” the general snarls.

Javic smiles sardonically. “Because you’re disrupting the timeline. There was no Sontaran invasion of Earth in 2021. You’re risking the unravelling of the entirety of time and space because a few sentient potatoes decided to play war.”

The Sontaran general blushes a darker brown in anger. “You shall not stand in our way, human.”

Now Javic frowns. “Hold on,” he protests in a very familiar whiny tone. “You didn’t have to get species-ist. And if you’re going to insult someone, at least try to be accurate.” Ianto rolls his eyes, but Javic has quickly returned back to business. “Anyways, it’s time for you guys to go.”

“Or what?” challenges a Sontaran, only to be quickly hushed by his comrades.

“Or I charge you and your troops for failing to comply with Time Agency orders and with the Shadow Proclamation.” Javic’s hand travels to rest lightly on one of his blasters. “And then… then things will get messy.”

He’s essentially left the Sontarans with no choice, and Torchwood watches in awe and bewilderment as, scowling, the Sontarans teleport back to their ship. A moment later, Tosh’s voice sounds in Ianto’s ear.

“ _ They’re all gone, _ ” she confirms, her voice just as confused as Ianto feels. “ _ He really talked them out of an invasion. _ ”

“Sounds like Javic Thane,” Ianto murmurs, and within minutes, the man in question comes bounding up to him.

“Are you glad I popped around?” Javic drawls, grinning widely and proudly. “Who would have saved you from all those nasty Sontarans otherwise?” He makes as if to reach a hand for Ianto’s hip to pull him closer, but Ianto shakes his head and steps just out of Javic’s grasp.

“Not here, not right now,” he says, and then leaves a bewildered Javic behind as he goes to help order and organize clean up.

* * *

After almost forty-five minutes of watching his operatives pick wreckage of the SUV from the grass and supervising the mass Retconning of the local village, Ianto finally returns to Javic. He’s been lurking near the woods all the while, flirting and making eyes with Torchwood employees, and Ianto’s frankly surprised he stayed behind.

Javic pouts as Ianto approaches. “It’s not every day I get rejected,” he teases Ianto, but there’s a slightly indecipherable glimmer to his eyes. “What, am I not good enough?”

“It wasn’t a rejection,” Ianto grumbles, peering back over his shoulder to ensure that no one’s around. “It was a raincheck. It’s not exactly appropriate for the director of Torchwood to be seen cavorting around a battlefield with a man who is at least a decade younger than him.”

“I don’t care,” Javic replies cheekily, and Ianto rolls his eyes.

“I know,” he replies, stepping closer to Javic and breathing in the familiar heady scent of his pheromones. “But I do. I’d prefer to avoid further teasing. Donna already isn’t your biggest fan.”

This causes Javic to look disgruntled, as if the thought of someone not loving or desiring him throws his entire world off-kilter. (Ianto bets it does.) A moment later, Javic smirks and finally places a hand at Ianto’s hip, pulling him against his solid body.

At last, Ianto allows himself to grasp at the shoulders he’d been ogling previously, his hands trailing down to squeeze Javic’s arse. Javic nearly jumps in surprise before he shoots Ianto a dark, lusty look. He cranes his head closer, attempting to capture Ianto’s lips, but Ianto ducks away again, and Javic’s pout increases.

Before Javic can complain again, Ianto wraps a hand around his wrist and yanks him further into the woods, pressing the other man against a tree. “Finally,” he sighs. “Fewer people to worry about now.”

“Outdoor sex?” Javic’s smile is mischievous. “I didn’t know you were so  _ kinky,  _ Ianto.”

“This will hardly be the kinkiest thing we’ve done,” Ianto tells him, returning his smile.

Their lips meet in a sudden, hasty kiss, and Ianto finds firm fingers rooted in his hair and hisses into Javic’s mouth. He wraps one arm around Javic’s neck, pulling him closer, and tilts his head to deepen the angle of the kiss. When the kiss ends, he pulls his head back and gazes down at Javic, brushing his thumb against his cheekbone. 

“I’ve missed you,” Javic says abruptly, and Ianto knows that his own eyes have widened, but before he can ask how long it’s been for Javic, the other man is leaning back forward to press a kiss to Ianto’s jaw, dragging his lips along Ianto’s jawline, sucking and nipping and grinning as Ianto groans throatily. 

“Hold on, hold on,” he says, shoving Javic away until he collides back with the tree, hissing. As Javic begins to protest, Ianto reaches for the odd clasp at the front of his trousers and wrenches them open to find that Javic isn’t wearing any underwear.

Ianto doubts he even really believes in the concept.

Javic blinks hopefully at Ianto, reaching down to pull his hard cock from his trousers. “Blowjob?”

Ianto rolls his eyes. “If you think I’m getting down on my knees in the middle of these woods, then you must be mistaken.” His suit may be ragged and dirty already, but he’s not going to further contribute to the damage, even if it’s beyond repair.

He fumbles for his wallet, for the packets of lube and condoms that he’s had stashed there ever since he and Javic began their… little fling, but Javic is already slipping him a small bottle of slick, causing Ianto to raise an eyebrow.

“Can’t blame a man for being prepared.” Javic grins blindingly.

Using his slick hand, Ianto strokes Javic’s cock, twisting near the base, squeezing and rubbing his thumb against the head. Javic moans, bucking his hips into Ianto’s hand, and throws his head against the tree.

“You really just went straight for it, didn’t you?” teases Javic, lips curled into that infuriating smirk that Ianto suddenly realizes he adores. Then he whimpers as Ianto tightens his grip. “Just…  _ ngh _ … just a little more pressure.”

It’s a quick affair. Javic’s likely been on the edge for a while - adrenaline will do that to a man. Ianto tugs on his cock several more times, and then Javic’s biting back a groan that sounds too similar to a name and spilling his release all over Ianto’s hand and wrist. 

Grimacing, Ianto wipes his hand on a handkerchief he fishes from his pocket that he’s surprised survived the battle. 

“Unlike you,” begins Javic, “I have no scruples about where I go down on a man.” Then he drops to his knees and unbuckles Ianto’s belt, unzipping his trousers to pull out Ianto’s cock, which he immediately wraps his mouth around.

Knees near buckling, Ianto immediately roots a hand in Javic’s hair. Javic makes eye contact with Ianto the entire time as he sucks Ianto’s brains out from his cock, and Ianto thinks he’s never blushed so brightly or fiercely. 

Biting back Javic’s name, he comes into Javic’s talented mouth and watches the other man swallow his release. 

Javic rises gracefully to kiss Ianto, bringing him closer with a hand between Ianto’s shoulder blades. Ianto can still taste his own release in Javic’s mouth and tries not to grimace; it’s no odder than any of the other things they’ve done. (Ianto recalls a particular night spent doing paperwork in his office in the Torchwood Institute with Javic whining and squirming in his lap, impaled on Ianto’s cock. Then he has to think about the snarling Sontaran general to avoid becoming hard again.)

“So what brought you around to twenty-first century Cardiff this time?” he asks Javic, expecting another noncommittal reply. 

So he’s surprised when Javic shrugs and repeats, “I missed you.” After a moment, he looks sheepish and continues, “Something about you… keeps drawing me back. It’s like you’re addictive, Ianto Jones.” He ducks his head briefly before admitting, “I’m more attached to you than I should be.”

Ianto has no earthly idea what to say to that, so he grabs Javic again and snogs him hard enough that they both run out of breath. Then he says, “I’m more attached to you than I should be too, Javic Thane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After attempted domestics with Ianto, Javic finds himself swept up by the Time Agency's darker tides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!!! Here is where the plot verges more towards that of Month 25 - to be fair, it's not really much, but those of you who have heard the audio might be able to recognize what it is/where this might be heading!
> 
> I hope you enjoy today's chapter!
> 
> Thanks to Al and Annika for the usual editing!
> 
> (Warning for implied violence/death and slight emetophobia towards the end.)

There’s a cold empty indent in Ianto Jones’s bed when he rolls over upon awakening one morning, his arm having stretched to grope sleepily at the body he’d expected to find there. 

He experiences an unexpected stab of faint disappointment and sighs. His sheets slip down his bare chest as he sits up, leaning against his headboard. He doesn’t know why he’d expected to find Javic still in his bed, despite the fact that the other man had been here when he’d fallen asleep. Clearly, the other man has left.

Like he always does.

There’s a sudden clatter from further in Ianto’s flat, and he immediately dives for his emergency gun, stowed conveniently between his bed and nightstand. He checks the magazine before sliding from the bed, grateful that he at least put on sweatpants before he went to sleep. Still, his shirt and trousers from last night are lying crumpled on the opposite side of the mattress.

That’s a problem for after Ianto confronts whoever has broken into his flat and - by the sounds of it - is rummaging through his kitchen. Something metallic clatters to the floor. A low-pitched voice curses.

Ianto’s brow furrows as he tiptoes to his bedroom door and silently turns the doorknob, poking his head out with his gun raised. He has a direct view to his kitchen and is surprised to find... Javic Thane, dressed in last night’s rumpled clothing, holding a mug and staring bewilderedly at Ianto’s beloved coffee machine.

“What are you doing?” Ianto asks in absolute confusion. He subtly sets the gun on the little table beside the door and makes for the kitchen, shoving Javic away from his coffee machine. 

Javic pouts at him. “I was trying to make you breakfast,” he says before looking sheepish. “But twenty-first century cooking devices are so primitive.” He steps aside, allowing Ianto to run quick hands over the coffee machine. “Quit groping the machine! One would think you like it more than _me._ ”

“I’m checking to make sure that you didn’t break it,” Ianto explains distractedly. When he ensures that it is completely unharmed, he takes the mug from Javic, sniffing the air hesitantly. “Is something burning?”

“Fuck! The bacon!” The other man whips around, nearly diving towards the stove, and manages to turn the gas off. He bats his eyes pleadingly at Ianto, looking unfairly adorable, all sleep-rumpled and messy hair and puppy dog eyes. Ianto’s heart clenches painfully. “I was trying to surprise you.”

Ianto sighs again. “Look. I’ll make the coffee. You try not to burn the eggs.” His toaster pops, and the harsh smell of burning returns to the air. He grimaces. “And put more toast in.”

Working together, they manage to make a decent, only slightly burnt breakfast in twenty minutes before settling at Ianto’s kitchen island to eat. Javic forks giant bites of egg into his mouth, spewing crumbs everywhere. Ianto suppresses his flinches well enough, he supposes, as he sips at his coffee.

“What are your plans for today?” Ianto inquires, tone intentionally conversational, because he _needs_ to know why Javic stayed this morning and threw off Ianto’s carefully regulated balance. 

Shrugging, Javic sips his own coffee. “I’d jumped here right after a mission, so honestly, who knows?” Then his eyes widen in realization. “ _Shit. Fuck. Shit._ ”

Alarm shoots through Ianto, and he stiffens. “What’s wrong?” he demands.

“Nothing, nothing,” Javic says as he stands, quickly dropping his empty plate and drained mug into the sink. He smooths down his clothes and finger-combs his hair. “I sorta have a meeting that I’m three thousand years simultaneously early and late for.”

“But you can _time travel._ ” A beat. “You yourself told me you could never be late -” Ianto finds himself suddenly cut off by Javic cradling his face and kissing him urgently. 

“She’d know,” Javic tells him as he moves to stand in the center of Ianto’s kitchen, leaving Ianto breathless. He has a constant habit of doing that. “She’s sorta the head of the Time Agency.”

Ianto rolls his eyes as Javic teleports away in a flash of golden light. 

* * *

“Do you know why you are here, Agent Thane?” Maglin Shank asks, fixing stern brown eyes on Javic, who only smirks under her gaze. “In my office?”

“Considering that you haven’t yet confessed your passionate, undying affection for me,” Javic drawls, arms crossed behind his head, tipping back childishly in his chair, “I’m gonna give it a no.” A beat. “Why don’t _you_ tell me?”

Her gaze hardens. “Don’t backtalk me, Thane. If you haven’t noticed, your silly charm doesn’t work on everyone. There are some here at the Time Agency that merely tolerate you.”

Javic huffs. “That’s their problem.” He drops his arms to fold them over his chest. He really doesn’t want to be here.

He wishes he was still in 2021 Cardiff, in Ianto’s flat, most importantly, with Ianto. His surprise breakfast plans might have failed, but he’d still managed a delightful morning with the other man. And wrangled some delicious coffee out of the entire affair.

Heat licks up his spine as he remembers their activities of the night previous. How he’d surprised Ianto by popping into his office, pissing off Donna again when she later found out. Back at Ianto’s flat, Ianto had punished him by sucking his brains out through his cock but refusing to let him come, keeping him on the edge for _hours._

That orgasm had been _explosive._

“Agent Thane,” Maglin snaps, snatching his attention again. Javic tries to hide his grimace, not wanting to add fuel to the fire of her displeasure. She shifts, settling back against her desk, her nose wrinkling. “You can’t keep flitting off to the twenty-first century and neglecting your duties as a Time Agent. You could risk the timelines.” The only indication of Javic’s surprise at being found out is the slight tightening around his eyes, but she smirks anyways. “Yes, I know. There is little that can be kept from the head of the Time Agency.”

He’d been _exaggerating_ what he’d told to Ianto. _Fuck._

“What I get up to on my time is none of your concern, Maglin,” Javic parries, winking at her. “Apologies that my activities of leisure do not include shagging you.”

Her grimace is very, _very_ pronounced, and Javic would almost be offended if not for the jolt of panic from Maglin’s words that have caused his heart to begin to beat in double time, a rhythm that only worsens with her next words. “Well, you’d be wrong, Thane,” she tells him. “The Time Agency would be concerned with the fact that your activities of leisure involve shagging a well-known twenty-first century head of the Torchwood Institute, _if they were to know._ ”

Javic holds her stare, his eyes hardening, lips pursing into a thin line. “Good thing that they will not,” he replies flatly. 

Maglin shrugs elegantly. “I have called you here, Agent Thane, to offer you a new assignment.”

Well, that’s unusual. Most times, details about new missions or assignments are sent straight to his vortex manipulator. Why would she have called him into her office to give him his next assignment?

So he asks her. And she tells him. She explains everything, and he listens, mouth shut for once, nodding occasionally. 

And when she’s done speaking, he says, “That’s far outside the usual duties of a Time Agent.”

She smiles, and the expression sends chills down his spine. “You would be fairly compensated, of course,” she says, “with two months worth of pay.”

“For one mission?”

“For one mission.”

“Well?” Javic shrugs. “What reason do I have to say no, then?” 

But even as he smirks at Maglin, he has an odd feeling, all the hairs on the back of his neck rising to attention, that he’s getting himself into something he shouldn’t.

* * *

Considering how much smaller it is than most other luxury space cruisers, _The Swan Song_ more than makes up for its size with its lavishness. Javic’s boots sink into plush velvet carpet when he first teleports onboard, his mouth dropping open at the sheer amount of gold that covers almost every available surface. 

The technology here, in the thirty-fourth century, is just a bit more complex than that of the twenty-first century, but is still primitive enough that Javic can circumvent it from his vortex manipulator, erasing his sudden appearance in the corridor from the rotating cameras. He straightens out the lapels of his well-fitted jacket - thirty-fourth century fashion considers casual to be the new formal - before stepping out into the main hallway, imagining what Ianto would say if he saw Javic strutting around this space cruiser.

He’d probably make some quip about the interior design choices.

Javic’s brow furrows lightly, wondering why he’s been quite preoccupied recently with what Ianto would say regarding everything, even the bread he attempted to purchase last week from the fifty-first century equivalent of a supermarket. At times, he even finds himself turning to the side to impress Ianto with his wit or to flirt with the other man, only to find an Ianto-shaped emptiness around him.

He’s still not entirely sure why he spent the morning with Ianto either, considering that goes well against Javic’s usual “shag-em-and-ditch-em” practices.

Ianto Jones has Javic breaking from his own traditions in ways he wouldn’t have even imagined. By Ianto’s side, Javic feels an inexplicable urge to take the other man’s hand in his and just hold it. Just - ridiculously - hold it. 

Javic Thane is starting to get these ridiculous romantic notions about Ianto Jones, and that’s not right. That can’t be right. Javic doesn’t fall for anyone. He’s the one who’s fallen for. He’s the one who breaks hearts. Just ask-

“Pardon me,” grunts a grey-skinned humanoid in a crop top and jean shorts as they shoulder past Javic. They head down the same direction Javic was coming from, and he realizes that he’s been meandering along this hallway for a few minutes with no actual insight as to where he’s heading.

No more thoughts of Ianto Jones. He has a mission, and he’s here to complete it. To carry it out “under all means possible,” as were Maglin’s instructions.

Further down this hallway is the grand ballroom of _The Swan Song,_ and in that ballroom is his target.

Hazy pop music spills from the opulent double doors as he shoves them open and walks into the gala - well, again, thirty-fourth century high standards equate to twenty-first century casual. Javic has walked into the equivalent of a club party.

Under bright flashing lights, aliens of all kinds and in all colors grind against each other to a song Javic’s heard before and doesn’t care to hear again, and he’s not even being judgmental. He’s notoriously not picky and has danced in worse clubs to horrible, ear-bleeding music; this music is just that bad. 

He stalks forward, shoving through the crowd of writhing bodies, allowing himself to be groped and then giving as good as he gets. A wandering hand reaches to squeeze the bulge in his trousers, and winking, he suppresses a surprised grunt. Right, he had forgotten that the sense of propriety in the thirty-fourth century is very, _very_ low.

...and why is he still thinking of everything in terms of the twenty-first century? That goes against every rationale of his Time Agency training, which, despite what many of his instructors and fellow trainees will say, he _was_ paying attention to. 

Mistakes, being unfamiliar with timelines and history, forgetting, that all leads a Time Agent to death, at the very best.

Javic finds himself a high vantage point on one of the balconies that overlook the dancers and searches the ballroom for his target. Approximately ten minutes later, he finally locks eyes on the person he’s here for, who has appeared at the busy bar.

Human ambassador Kalika Hasick. Pink-haired, purple lipstick, platform boots that run up to her thighs.

In a decade, she will attend intergalactic conferences and make important decisions about the spread of humanity amongst the stars and the planets they will colonize.

Right now, she’s slipping from the ballroom, vivid drink in hand, likely heading to one of the private viewing galleries on the other side of the space cruiser.

He strides down the stairs and sweeps through the crowd again. This time, he’s hard-eyed and unsmiling and passes through like a phantom, the dancers ridding themselves quickly of someone unwelcoming to their appetites and energy.

The space cruiser’s size allows for Javic to catch up with Hasick quickly enough. He slips into the hallway just as she rounds the corner leading away.

As predicted, Hasick enters one of the viewing galleries. Javic pauses several footsteps away to take a slow inhale of breath. Then, palming the sonic blaster holstered against his side, hidden artfully by the drape of his jacket, he follows her inside.

* * *

Teleporting back to the twenty-first century is rougher than it was leaving it. Javic arrives in a dirty alley several streets away from Ianto’s flat and nearly stumbles backwards into the brick wall.

His entire body is shaky, his vision blurring slightly from how light-headed he feels. Something acrid burns his throat, trying to force its way up, and he nearly gags, eyes watering. He pants once or twice, trying to regulate his breathing and bring his body under control. It’s fine. It’s all fine. Everything is fine. Ianto is close by.

The thought of Ianto causes the sick in his throat to rise again, and he doubles over to vomit into the dirt, retching his guts out until there’s nothing left.

Javic drags a hand across his forehead and is surprised to find it come back damp with sweat.

He’s fine. Everything is fine. He will be fine.

Still in its holster, his sonic blaster is cool to the touch. The only indication it was used is the slight lightness, indicating that it is now lacking a charge.

He takes ten minutes to catch his breath, for the bitterness in his throat to fade even in the slightest, though the taste doesn’t. He’s bewildered by the fact that no one has walked by the alley before he realizes that the light filtering through its mouth is pale and weak. It’s only been an hour since the sun rose. He checks the date on his vortex manipulator and finds that it’s the weekend, almost a full week since he left Ianto's flat. Most reasonable people will be staying inside so early on a Saturday morning, but Ianto Jones will be awake.

The ten-minute walk to Ianto’s flat nearly takes twenty, but he uses his vortex manipulator to bypass the security check at the front double doors and to summon the elevator. The short stretch of hallway to Ianto’s door feels more like a long trek, but he slowly finds his footing, hoping he looks less like a squashed bug than he feels. 

Trembling fingers curled into a slight fist, Javic raps at the front door and waits just a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Finally, the door swings open.

The sleep-rumpled face of one Ianto Jones peeks out, his bleary eyes widening when they land on the Time Agent. “ _Javic?_ ” 

“Gonna let me in, Mr. Jones?” Javic asks. “I could use a glass of water.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto cope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter isn't what it seems, but it's also a lot of soft and a lot of angst. I hope you enjoy it, and leave me your reactions in the comments! Thanks to Al for editing as usual, and thanks to Kai for making this ANGSTIER. Ily both.
> 
> ALSO, WE'RE HALFWAY THRU THIS FIC, BABEY! LEMME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!! CAUSE THIS WAS ONLY EVER SUPPOSED TO BE A ONESHOT TO GET KAI TO LIKE ME DSKSKDKDKDAS.

_“Lisa? Lisa?”_ _Ianto Jones screams. “Lisa?” His voice echoes through the empty, blood-streaked hallways of Canary Wharf._

_ He’s back, trapped in this living nightmare. Thirteen years have done nothing to dull the spike of cold terror he feels as he trudges across the floor, stepping over rubble and fallen ceiling beams and shards of glass. Every so often, he encounters a mangled limb poking out from beneath the wreckage, and the lump in his throat grows, the fear increasing. As he clambers over squashed office chairs and the breaches between the cubicles, arms and legs numb and shaking, all he can focus on is Lisa. _

_ She is his one clear thought, the love of his life. The reason he’s not dead right now. When the Cybermen descended onto the tower, Ianto had snuck down to find Lisa on the lower floors, where she was supposed to have been, working in Alien Acquisitions. Yvonne had given him an understanding glance as the Cybermen had marched her and Jackie Tyler away. _

_ He’s going back for Yvonne, going back to find her, now that the Cybermen and Daleks have been sucked away. Now that the Doctor has disappeared in his TARDIS. It’s just Ianto and a few living souls left in this hellish battlefield, and he has to find Lisa, make sure that she’s one of the survivors. Make sure that she wasn’t taken away to be converted. Then they’ll find Yvonne and make it out to UNIT, who are surely on their way to help. _

_ Right, he has to find Lisa. And thus far, he has traversed floor after floor, his legs trembling from flight after flight of stairs, the lift having ground to a fault, its machinery and AI dead, without a trace of her. Three floors ago, he encountered Kieran. Object One is tucked away securely in the one pocket of his suit that isn’t ripped. He wishes he had a gun. _

_ As he continues onwards, the burning in his muscles melting into a numb ache, throat going hoarse from screaming for Lisa, he encounters the first of the partially-converted. He doesn’t think the horrifying memory of them will fade from his mind no matter how long he lives, which he doubts will be very long, considering the state of the tower. There could still be Cybermen or Dalek threats somewhere out there, or the tower’s damaged wiring could spark an electrical fire. _

_ “Lisa!” he calls. “Lisa?” There are dried tear tracks on his face, cutting through the blood and grime. The higher up he goes, the more the air in the tower takes on an almost dusty quality from the sheer amount of rubble. Here is where the most damage occurred. Here is also where he finds the most crushed or partially-converted bodies. Once more unto the breach he goes, trying to ignore their begging, inhuman cries. _

_ He is not here. He is anywhere else. Anywhere, anywhere, else. Not cast under blinking red lights. Not bruised and sore and shaking and scared beyond reason. _

_ Then he finds her, Lisa Hallett, still hooked up to the conversion unit. There is not a single part of her not covered in that shiny, disgusting metal except her beautiful face. She sheds tears when she sees him approaching, clambering over the crumpled parts of conversion units. Her lovely brown eyes are wide and terrified, her voice hoarse when she calls to him. _

_ When he reaches her side to slide a warm hand along the curve of her cheek, trying to ignore the chill of the metal, he realizes that he’s sobbing too.  _

_ “Just a moment, Lisa,” he tells her in between breathless pants. “I’ll get you out of there. Hold on. I won’t leave you. I’ll take care of you now. I love you.” _

_ Ianto bends down to carefully run his hands over the unit, mindful of the still-extended blade. But when he glances back up, it is no longer Lisa. The person in the Cyber conversion unit has changed. _

_ “Ianto, Ianto, get me out,” they sob, terrified and begging, but the voice... it’s all wrong. It’s too flat, too American, too deep, too devoid of its usual flirtatious charm. “Ianto, please.” _

_ His head whips up, and the Cyberman has changed, still washed in that skin-crawling red lighting. The shoulders are broad but still metal, the body too muscular. And the face. It’s no longer Lisa. Blue eyes that are no longer twinkling, a pale face, cheekbones made more severe by the metal framing his face, a thin cut above his eyebrow. _

_ “No,” Ianto murmurs, stumbling backwards. “No, no, no, no, no.” _

_ “Ianto, please. Help me. I love you,” begs a cyberized Javic Thane, and Ianto- _

-is still screaming when he jolts upwards, heart pounding a percussionist’s vivacissimo. The sheets beneath him are soaked through with sweat. There is still an emptiness on the other side of the bed, no other head to rest itself on Ianto’s other pillow.

His hands shake as he pours himself a glass of water from the pitcher on his bedside table. When he feels as if he’s no longer three steps from the precipice of panic or tears, he draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in his hands.

* * *

When the knock on the door comes, Ianto’s been up pacing his flat for hours, which is why he’s so quick to whip the door open, heart beginning to race again. He feels stretched as thin as a piece of taffy. Any moment now, he’s going to be pulled apart.

It’s Javic who smiles up cautiously at his wild-eyed look. “Gonna let me in, Mr. Jones?” he asks, except either Ianto’s projecting because of his nightmare or Javic’s truly shaken; there is no ounce of easy flirting or smug Javic Thane-ness in his tone. “I could use a glass of water.”

“Right, of course,” Ianto says hastily and nearly wrenches the door off its hinges in his haste to allow the other man to stumble inside. He shuts the door and hurries to the kitchen. “I’ll bring you some water.”

“I was joking,” Javic calls quietly after him, “but I do appreciate it.”

Five minutes later, he sits on the couch sipping the glass of water that Ianto’s handed him. Ianto sits on the opposite couch. Thus far, Javic has said nothing since he stepped into the flat, not even rambled or made a suggestive comment. It’s almost unnerving. Ianto fiddles with his fingers, tugging at the sleeves of his jumper.

_ Is it too early to crack into the liquor? _ he wonders, but when he glances outside, the sun has barely risen over the horizon. 

“Thanks,” Javic says, face ducked towards the floor. He slides forward to place his empty glass on the coffee table, coughing to clear his throat. “May I... may I use your shower? I’m afraid that I might have become a tad grimy during my last hop to the fifty-first century.” He casts a distracted glance over his clothes, which, to Ianto’s eyes, are perfectly neat and clean, if a tad less futuristic. 

“Yeah, of course,” Ianto says. He leads Javic to the bathroom and walks him through how to turn the shower on and heat the water, something which Javic has seen him do a few times before when they had shower sex. Finally: “I’ll bring you a towel. And a change of clothes.”

Being useful, that is something he can do right now.

* * *

Ianto rifles through his closet, searching for older or looser clothes of his to give to Javic, who is slightly broader in the shoulders and chest. He settles on a somewhat holey fuzzy blue jumper that Gwen bought him one Christmas that he hasn’t actually worn in a few years and his most comfortable pair of grey joggers. Then he also grabs a pair of socks and pulls a clean towel from the separate linen closet that he keeps.

The door to his bathroom swings open when he pushes on it, the inside already slightly hazy and humid from the heat of the water. His shower stall has a door made of frosted glass that swings outwards, and beyond it, he can make out the blurred lines of Javic’s nude, muscled body as the other man slumps under the shower spray.

Mouth suddenly dry, Ianto sets the stack of clothes and towel on his bathroom counter and squares his shoulders. He knocks softly on the glass. “Javic, I left you some clothes and a towel on the counter. I’ll be in the kitchen making some coffee.”

When he turns to leave, he’s stopped by a sudden warm but wet hand wrapped around his wrist. Javic has pushed the stall door open, steam spilling everywhere and muffling Ianto’s senses, and is leaning outwards, gazing at Ianto with heavy-lidded dark eyes.

“Ianto,” he murmurs, and Ianto finds himself pulled gently into the shower, stumbling slightly over the raised threshold of the stall, and pinned against the white tile wall, his clothes gradually being soaked through by the spray of the water. Javic presses a careful hand against his chest, keeping him there, and leans in to nuzzle his nose against the curve of Ianto’s jumper-covered shoulder and up to his bare neck, his hand coming up to cup Ianto’s cheek. 

Then he kisses Ianto, his mouth warm against Ianto’s even amongst the humidity and heaviness of the air, and Ianto relaxes against the wall, every muscle and synapse in his brain pliant and singing in response to Javic. Ianto twines his fingers into Javic’s damp hair, uncaring of how his clothes are now soaking and plastered to him.

Javic’s other hand slips to where the waistband of Ianto’s sweatpants drag at his hips, and Ianto’s hand joins it, their fingers intermingling. Slowly, together, they push Ianto’s sweatpants and boxers off before Javic tosses them to the tile floor outside the stall, scattering droplets of water everywhere. Not long after, Ianto’s jumper joins them in a wet pile, and Ianto presses himself against Javic, seeking every inch of warm, wet, soft skin that he can.

Javic shivers in his grasp, and Ianto only holds him tighter, wondering what exactly has caused the other man to look so haunted. “Come here,” he whispers, resting his palm flat in between Javic’s shoulder blades, hooking a leg behind Javic’s. 

“I don’t think I’ll be much good for anything right now,” warns Javic with just a hint of quivery amusement to his words. He glances between them pointedly, where his cock is still soft. Strangely enough, so is Ianto’s; he would have thought that the combination of a hot shower and a naked Javic Thane would always be enough to give him a hard-on, but he’s glad to know that there are some places where his rational brain can take control over his primal, horny hindbrain.

Ianto shakes his head. “We don’t have to. We can just hold each other.” And while still wrapped around Javic, he fumbles blindly to the side, to where he knows he’s stacked his soaps and shampoos on a ledge built into the tile, until he grasps his body wash. Awkwardly, he squeezes a generous amount onto his hands before rubbing body wash over Javic’s back, discreetly groping his arse as he cleans the other man. 

He continues lathering soap over Javic’s collarbone, the other man biting his lip all the while. Finally, after managing to awkwardly lather himself up as well, they inch under the shower spray, mindful of the slippery tile, Javic clinging to Ianto like a koala. Now that he’s closer to the ledge, Ianto pours his expensive shampoo over his palms and works it into a foam before massaging his fingers through Javic’s hair and across his scalp. Javic buries his head against Ianto’s shoulder and rests, shuddering, in his grasp.

The good thing about a shower, Ianto realizes, is that it disguises tears.

They rinse off and dry with the towel Ianto left on the counter, running careful hands over each other, but neither man dresses. Together, they trudge to Ianto’s bedroom, dripping water everywhere, and fall into the new sheets Ianto’s covered his bed in.

Javic and Ianto fall asleep like that too, Ianto flat on his back, Javic curled up half on top of him, his head resting on Ianto’s chest, their legs tangled together, fingers unconsciously intertwined.

It’s the most peaceful sleep Ianto remembers getting all week.

* * *

Bright morning sunlight breaks through the large windows, lighting up Ianto’s living room and kitchen. He moves slowly as he pours coffee into a mug and pushes it to where Javic sits at the island. Then he pours himself a cup.

Javic sips at his coffee, sighing softly. “One of the things this century did right,” he says quietly, “other than you, of course, is the coffee.” And then he winks at Ianto.

Sipping at his own mug, Ianto allows his shoulders to slump, grateful that Javic’s back to feeling like himself again. “I think you’ll find,” he replies, just a tad smugly, “that I’m one of the few who can make coffee this well.” He wraps his fingers contentedly around the mug.

In a move pulled directly from Ianto’s playbook, Javic crooks an eyebrow at Ianto. “Bit full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I have reason to be.” Ianto drums his fingers along the marble of the counter, gazing out at the view of the bay through the nearest window. It’s only a bit past eleven in the morning, but Ianto has been up for what feels like ages. “We had an UNIT operative once switch to Torchwood for my coffee alone.”

Plus the very generous pay benefits and health insurance. Ianto likes to think that Torchwood is a good employer. His Torchwood at least.

“All you twenty-first century secret organizations are essentially the same,” Javic tells him, and Ianto narrows his eyes at him.

“Watch it,” he says, wagging his finger warningly, “or I won’t make you breakfast.” He turns to pull a loaf of bread from a cupboard and places two slices in his toaster. Conversationally: “Do you have another meeting you’re late for today?”

Javic shakes his head, tracing idle fingers along the rim of his mug. “No, actually.” When Ianto peeks back at him, he looks vaguely sheepish. “I thought we could go out today.”

“What?” Ianto asks, flatly.

“I’m technically here on my time off,” the other man points out. “So I’m a tourist. Show me around 2021 Cardiff. Take me to dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner and a movie?” Now, Ianto cocks his eyebrow. “That’s really what you want to do? As a fifty-first century Time Agent? On your time off? In 2021 Cardiff?”

The other man’s eyes are wide and playfully pleading, and Ianto feels his heartstrings twinge. “Yeah,” Javic replies. “That’s really what I want to do. Show me what typical twenty-first century life is like, Ianto Jones.”

So Ianto doesn’t say no to Javic - he finds that he can’t say no to Javic, in fact - but also doesn’t mention how, for him, typical twenty-first century life has become a tad more lackluster without Javic Thane around. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Reblog the tumblr post for this fic [here](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/630269072469377024/title-sing-me-like-a-choir-link-here-squares).
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they would in any universe, Javic and Ianto do dinner and a movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Ianto, in any universe, will always do dinner and a movie. Here's my take on that! Hope you enjoy!

“This is your definition of  _ typical twenty-first century life? _ ” Javic asks skeptically as he drags his eyes across the Plass. “Your workplace is right there.” He points right across the Plass, to where the Torchwood Institute tower looms over the bay, pulling at the slightly tight wrists of the denim jacket he’s wearing. He’s borrowed Ianto’s clothes, and the sight of Javic Thane in his older jeans, the fuzzy blue jumper, and his jacket is doing something inexplicably wonderful to Ianto’s insides, even if he can still see the shadows under Javic’s eyes and the pallor of his skin.

Ianto rolls his eyes, slowing his stride as they approach the Plass. His shoulder brushes against Javic’s, and he feels a sudden jolt of warmth. “The Plass is a significant part of Cardiff and its history,” he says. “Of Torchwood’s history, in fact.”

“Huh.” Javic’s wearing a mildly intrigued expression, chewing away at his bottom lip, when Ianto glances over, and though he can’t imagine any of this is particularly interesting to a Time Agent who has travelled worlds and times that Ianto wouldn’t dare dream of, he finds himself explaining the beginnings of Torchwood to Javic.

He leads Javic to right next to the water tower. “Right here,” he says, “is where Torchwood Three used to be. Right underneath our feet. The Hub. It’s all underground.”

There’s an interested spark in Javic’s blue eyes to match his pursed lips; he’s reacting far more viscerally, far  _ more _ than Ianto would have expected, which sends his mind spiralling.

Does Javic feel what Ianto does, when he’s around the Plass and near the Hub, that odd tugging in his gut? The sensation that he’s several steps out of sync at all times? Sometimes, he feels like an outline of the real Ianto Jones, a ghostly phantom slowly materializing, like the Cybermen at Canary Wharf, after Yvonne and Torchwood One descended on the sphere. 

Shivers crawl down his spine at the thought of Canary Wharf and the Cybermen, especially after his recent nightmare.

(Sometimes, he wonders how things could have changed, had something in his life been different. Had something changed. As the director of Torchwood, he’s not unfamiliar with the idea of alternate timelines or alternative universes. 

How would he and Javic still have met, if they could have? Had Canary Wharf not fallen, would Javic have come to London and found Ianto married to Lisa? Or if Ianto had taken up one of the Doctor’s numerous invitations to travel with them, often directed towards him, Gwen, or Tosh, would he have met Javic on a planet somewhere in the future?

Or were they meant to never have met at all? Is this meeting of theirs, this relationship, if that’s what it can be called, that they have taken up, an aberration?) 

“Ianto?” Javic asks, curiously, drawing Ianto’s attention back to the present. He’s eyeing Ianto like he knows that Ianto’s thoughts were  _ universes  _ away. “The Hub? What about it?”

“Ah, yes, the Hub,” Ianto says, picking right where he left off. “It’s underneath us. There used to be an entrance over  _ there, _ ” - he points across the Plass to where the tourist office once stood - “but now only one entrance remains.” To demonstrate what he’s saying, he steps forward, onto the paving stone that serves as the invisible lift, and then steps off. “Right there.”

“Perception filter?” Javic asks, eyes narrowed, and Ianto nods. “So what happened to them? This Torchwood Three, I mean?”

A sudden weariness settles over Ianto, his shoulders slumping. He’s not up to explaining Canary Wharf to Javic yet, and he has no idea if Javic is knowledgeable about twenty-first century Earth history to that extent, even if he’d known what Torchwood was the first time they met. Finally, he says, “What happens to anyone who used to be in the old Torchwood, before I resurrected it. Tragedy. Death. Two decades ago, just as the clock struck twelve towards 2000, the final director of Torchwood Three shot his entire team and then himself.” Javic inhales sharply. “And there was no one left to carry the mantle. And thus, Torchwood Three ceased to exist.”

“Sorry,” mutters Javic. “That was heavy for what was supposed to be a rather relaxed night.”

Ianto shrugs. “Don’t apologize. You weren’t there. You had nothing to do with it. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Javic nods, smile slightly hesitant for him. “I think I saw a place advertising fish and chips a bit further away,” he offers. “For the actual dinner portion of tonight.” A beat. “I haven’t actually had fish and chips before, but I’ve heard a lot about them.” He shoves his hands further into the pockets of his borrowed jacket, but Ianto has a feeling that now is not the time to chide him for being careful about its seams.

“We call them chippies,” Ianto corrects but allows Javic to lead the way towards the chippy, both men’s smiles becoming a tad more genuine and relaxed.

They order two of Ianto’s usual from the chippy, a place frequented by many Torchwood employees, including Ianto and Donna, on slow days. Ianto astounds Javic by dousing his chips in salt and vinegar, causing the other man to raise a skeptical eyebrow. Until Ianto reaches over and, despite Javic’s numerous protests, does the same to his chips. 

“This is not bad,” Javic says finally as he takes another bite of a chip, and now, Ianto raises an expectant eyebrow at him. Javic nearly chokes on his chip.

“I’d never lead you astray, would I?” Ianto teases.

“I don’t think you ever could, Ianto Jones,” replies Javic, with just a tad more gravity and heartfelt emotion than Ianto expected. He masks the slight flushing to his skin by biting into his fish. 

Ianto quickly tosses their rubbish away before joining Javic by a railing that overlooks the bay. Yet, instead of looking at the water, the man is peering up at the Millenium Center. 

“Can we go up there?” he asks, pointing to the roof. 

“ _ Why? _ ” Ianto asks, utterly bewildered.

“Because it seems like it would feel  _ right, _ ” Javic says, and before Ianto can protest, Javic’s wrapped a solid arm around his waist. But instead of being teleported onto the Millenium Center as Ianto would have expected, he finds himself thoroughly snogged to within an inch of his life.

When Javic releases him, looking just as breathless and pink-cheeked as Ianto feels, Ianto takes a step back to smooth down his own jumper and straighten out his jacket. 

“So,” he begins, “the Millenium Center?”

Shrugging, Javic glances back around the Plass. “It can wait,” he says finally. “I believe you owe me a movie, Mr. Jones.”

* * *

The cinema Ianto chooses is one simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar to him - the Electro, over on Hope Street. (Javic wants to teleport them there instantly, but Ianto, rolling his eyes, insists on walking the twenty minute journey.)

Well, it’s not the Electro anymore; it’s been torn down and rebuilt into a shiny, newer cinema, but it’s still the Electro to Ianto, the place his father would bring him on Saturday mornings to watch kids’ films. For a time, at least. By the time Ianto was seven, his father was more invested in bottles of whisky than his son.

“What’s playing?” Javic asks, peering at the colorful movie posters with wide eyes. His smile is bright; he looks like a kid in a candy store, and Ianto briefly considers how novel and primitive this must seem to him. “Anything good?”

“There’s never anything good playing,” Ianto says. “Not unless it’s Star Wars or James Bond or Indiana Jones.” Most movies, nowadays, have become meaningless explosions or gratuitous violence, none of which is to Ianto’s taste, at least not any more. “Hold on. I’ll Google it.”

Like any other human being of his time who randomly decides to watch a movie at a cinema for once, instead of at home, he pulls out his smartphone and begins searching the Internet. Javic crowds over, attempting to gaze down at the screen, their shoulders brushing and bumping each other. The other man literally radiates heat alongside those pheromones. Ianto wants to fit their hands together and never let go.

“So our options are a random action flick, a romcom, or a kid’s cartoon movie,” Javic surmises, grinning widely. “This is so  _ normal. _ ” His tongue darts out to moisten the corners of his mouth, Ianto’s eyes briefly drawn to the movement before they dart back to his smartphone screen. “I think the action flick will be the most interesting.”

Personally, Ianto doubts it, considering the reviews on the movie, but he doesn’t say a word as he excuses himself, stepping towards the ticket counter. Behind him, Javic amusedly gazes at families wandering together and teens on dates buying each other snacks; Ianto wonders how he’d react if Ianto took him to the Royal Arcade shopping center. He also wonders what entertainment options are like in the fifty-first century.

(An avid science fiction fan, he’s had so many questions he’s been dying to ask Javic since they met, but he knows he’ll never be able to do so because of timelines.)

He pays for the tickets and returns to Javic’s side, the other man still heavily invested in people-watching. Finally, Ianto gives into his growing urge and reaches to grasp Javic’s hand under the pretense of pulling him towards the concession stand.

Javic’s eyes only grow wider at the expanse of snacks available. “I love the twenty-first century,” he says softly as he inches towards a rack displaying mostly chocolate candies. Just the sight of them make Ianto’s gums hurt; his own tastes verge towards dark chocolate and the savory or sour, but he’s learned by now that Javic has a major sweet tooth.

(Wrapped together in bed, the sheets damp with the sweat from several rounds of fucking, the window cracked open to let in a cooling breeze, Javic had once told Ianto about the best dessert he’d ever tasted - a wispy cotton candy that was holographic and melted like air on his tongue and tasted like the purest and sweetest waters of his homeworld. The sound of it made Ianto think of the lemon-flavored Kellerian whisky they’d once sipped together on a rooftop.)

“I want popcorn,” Javic decides, suddenly heading towards the young employee manning the popcorn machine. He orders the largest size they have and asks for it drenched in butter, which Ianto thinks is very faux-American of him. When Javic makes for his vortex manipulator, balancing the bag of popcorn in the crook of his elbow, Ianto stops him with a slight shake of his head.

“Not here,” he says quietly, Javic rolling his eyes despite the understanding in his expression. “Timelines. It’ll be less complicated if you just let me pay. With actual twenty-first century money.” And he pulls out his wallet and hands over his credit card, and Javic grins, already reaching to pop occasional pieces of popcorn into his mouth. 

They head towards the other side of the cinema and find the correct hall for their movie, yet when they enter and take their seats towards the back, it’s completely deserted. 

“Wow,” Javic drawls, stretching his legs over the edge of the seat in the row before him, “looks like no one wanted to see this movie.” Ianto can’t hold back his bark of laughter.

A sudden idea sparks in his mind, and he turns slyly to Javic. “Hey, do you know what twenty-first century guys do during bad movies?”

Javic eyes him curiously, biting his bottom lip. “No?” He looks genuinely flummoxed, which Ianto finds hilarious. He’s used to Javic being the learned-and-flirted one of fifty-first century and Time Agent experience, so it’s nice to have a leg up on the other man for a change.

Ianto reaches forward, grabbing Javic by the neck of his jumper and gently yanking him towards him. Their lips meet, and Ianto cups Javic’s face, fingers reaching to twine in the other man’s hair. Then he shifts backwards, Javic following forward with a slight whine and pout.

“They snog,” Ianto tells him, chuckling at the excited look that lights up Javic’s face. Then the other man surges forward to return his lips to Ianto’s, and Ianto is distracted again, lost in Javic Thane’s mouth and his hands snaking up the front of his jumper, Javic’s skin warm against his. Sparks lick up his spine. (Every time they touch, every time they kiss, it feels electric; it feels like the first time again.)

No one else ends up coming into the hall to watch the movie besides them, and the movie itself turns out to be exactly as terrible as its reviews suggested, but Javic and Ianto are not paying a lick of attention to the action, on-screen explosions paling in comparison to the sparks that fly between them. 

* * *

They’re up on the roof of the Millenium Center, and Cardiff is bursting full of life and noise before them. The entire city is lit up brightly, stretching as far as Ianto’s eyes can see, and faint yells and distant car horns drift up to them. It’s chilly up here, and Ianto wraps his own light jacket tightly around himself. Javic, standing beside him, is unbothered by the cold.

“I was right,” Javic breathes, and Ianto’s brow furrows. “It does feel  _ right  _ up here. I don’t know why... but it does.”

“Pardon?” 

“I’ve always loved rooftops,” Javic says as he turns to Ianto, and Ianto finds that Javic’s eyes are bright with an energy Ianto’s never seen before, his cheeks flushed. “The Boeshane Peninsula had a lot of cliffs. Early mornings, my family would hike up and watch the sun rise. We would do that for the sunset too, sometimes.” 

For a man who talks as much as he does, Javic rarely actually  _ says _ anything, so Ianto listens intently now.

“Standing that high, we could look out over the entire ocean,” muses Javic, “and the sun’s reflection would sparkle and shine on the water as the world brightened around you. As a boy, I always thought a Boeshane sunrise was one of the most beautiful sights in the world.” His eyes have taken on a suspicious wet sheen. “I left home once I became a Time Agent. I’ve never gone back.”

“Why not?” asks Ianto, softly. He’s inched closer to Javic, their hands brushing together. Now he performs one moment of boldness, of daring, and links their hands. Their palms brush together. Javic sweeps his thumb against the back of Ianto’s hand.

“There’s nothing left there for me,” he says. “My family’s all gone. I’ve got no one left.” He chances a quick glance towards Ianto. “Or so I thought.”

Ianto’s heart brims with sudden hope, and it feels warm, a tiny flame sparked to life within him. He wants to cradle his hands around this flame and let it grow into a hungry, passionate bonfire. He never wants to see the smile fade from Javic’s face, the light dim in his eyes.

  
_ Christ, _ he realizes with almost blinding clarity,  _ I’m in love with Javic Thane. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having had a frightening realization, Ianto seeks comfort and advice from his closest friend - Gwen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Violet; she shaped how this chapter went, and I also depended on them to glean Gwen's voice. Beta'd by the amazing Al, as usual, as well as Annika!
> 
> Enjoy!

The morning after what Ianto has come to realize was a date with Javic, he sits at his kitchen island, the same kitchen island where he’d sat only the previous morning with the Time Agent, eyes shadowed and nursing a glass of whisky.

Javic returned to the fifty-first century hours ago, but Ianto has not slept a wink. He hasn’t touched the whisky in almost an hour. Thoughts swim through his groggy mind -  _ I love him  _ and  _ I’m in love with him  _ and Javic the Cyberman replacing Lisa in the conversion unit in his nightmare.

“What have you done now, Ianto Jones?” he murmurs to himself, trailing a lone finger over the rim of his glass. “What have you dug yourself into now?”

Thirteen years it’s been since Lisa’s death, and all of Ianto’s relationships, as few as they were, were short lived, lasting no longer than a few weeks or a few months. He never felt for them as they began to feel for him. There’s no denying it, that despite Gwen and Owen and Tosh and Martha and Mickey and Rhi and everyone else in his life, he’s lonely. There’s no one for him to cook for, to shower with, to share his bed.

Or there was no one, before Javic.

He never thought he could feel the same way he felt about Lisa about anyone else. Javic Thane has proven to be the exception.

With him, Ianto feels like he’s been brought back to life. Like there were long-buried parts of him, parts that were more than just Torchwood and work, that Javic has coaxed to the surface. And even just thinking about it, he knows he sounds incredibly melodramatic and just like everything he hates.

He’s in love with Javic Thane, and he’s fucking terrified of that.

His smartphone is in his hand and he’s scrolling through his contacts before he’s even really aware of what he’s doing. The call rings and rings before it finally connects. There’s a familiar voice on the other end.

“ _ Ianto? Sweetheart? Why’d you call? _ ”

Jolted back to awareness by Gwen’s voice, Ianto presses his phone to his ear. “Gwen, hi,” he says lamely. “How are you doing?”

“ _ Well, considering it’s a Sunday morning, _ ” she says, sounding distracted, “ _ I think I’m cooking breakfast for myself and my daughter. _ ”

And indeed, if Ianto strains his ears, he can hear Anwen curiously asking who her mum is talking to and a louder reply from Gwen of  _ Just Uncle Ianto, sweetheart! _

“No Rhys around to cook for both of you?” he teases, wrapping a hand around the glass. He really should get on to eating as well; it’s almost ten, and he’s only consumed popcorn and whisky in the last ten hours. 

Gwen sighs in his ear. “ _ No, he’s up in London for a meeting. _ ” A beat. “ _ I honestly thought that with him no longer being a lorry driver, he’d be travelling less, but it’s almost as if he’s travelling  _ more  _ than before. _ ” She sighs again. “ _ What can I help you with, Ianto? _ ” 

He swallows down the sudden lump in his throat. “Would you like to get a drink in the evening? At our regular pub?”

When there’s an oddly long moment of silence that follows, he knows she’s suspicious. He’s always the one who is invited out, never the one who invites out.

“ _ Ianto, _ ” she begins, voice soft and quiet, likely so that Anwen doesn’t overhear. “ _ What’s wrong? _ ”

“I think I’m in love with Javic,” he admits.

“ _ Javic? _ ” she repeats. “ _ Javic Thane? _ ”

“Yes, him.”

“ _ Javic Thane the Time Agent? _ ”

“Yes, Gwen. He is still the same man.”

“ _ Well, bloody hell, Ianto. I have to say, I didn’t have  _ this  _ on my 2021 bingo card. _ ”

“Can you meet me in the evening or not?” he hisses, finally, his patience beginning to fray and his sleeplessness catching up with him. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Sorry, sorry. That was rude. I just…” He gazes down at the swirling white-grey marble of the island and wants to drop his head to its cool surface and just sleep for a millenia. 

“ _ It’s fine, Ianto, _ ” Gwen says. “ _ You’re frightened. That’s understandable. Love can be scary. _ ”

“I know, Gwen.” He inhales sharply, attempting to regulate his breathing. “I’ve been in love before.”

“ _ I know, Ianto. _ ” And she says no more regarding that. “ _ I can meet you for drinks in the evening, of course I can. I would never say no to you, Ianto. _ ”

“Thank you, Gwen.” Before he hangs up: “Love you, Gwen. You’re the best mate any man could ask for.”

“ _ I love you too, sweetheart. _ ”

* * *

Ianto has - essentially - the entire day to putter about his flat, which he uses to tidy up his bedroom and rearrange the cabinets in his kitchen. Around noon, he attempts a stir fry for lunch but has forgotten that he’s practically out of everything but a sad-looking bag of frozen vegetables and a few eggs, so he makes himself a mean scramble instead. This past week, Torchwood has been incredibly busy, with a few more attempted alien invasions and an employee being stuck in a time loop, and Ianto kept forgetting to run to Tesco’s after work. Then the weekend arrived, and he’d become distracted by Javic.

He feels slightly off-kilter. He’s not usually this much of a human disaster, at least not since he entered his thirties. And then comes the frightening, spine-chilling reminder of how quickly he’s approaching his forties. He’ll be turning thirty-eight this year. He finally finishes his glass of whisky upon having that realization.

Finally, he showers, attempting his hardest to forget how Javic had pressed himself against the wall just yesterday, and dresses before driving over to their regular pub. He sits at a table in the back and focuses on not remembering how Javic had kissed him softly just in the alley outside.

He’s one man, a man not even from this time, and yet somehow his footprints are scattered all over Cardiff, all over Ianto’s life. 

Despite it only having been roughly a year, Ianto doesn’t think he can remember what his life was like before he met Javic Thane. 

Gwen arrives ten minutes late, hurrying into the pub, her purse hanging by the crook of her elbow as she shrugs off her leather jacket. It’s her formal one, a little nicer and dressier than the one she wears on a daily basis for Torchwood, though she’s not really going into the field too much anymore, not unless it’s a dire situation like the Sontaran invasion. She trains new recruits now, started doing so three years ago after she was shot in the stomach by a Blowfish and nearly bled out. (Martha and Owen had to practically blacklist her from field duty; Ianto still flinches when he recalls the arguments.)

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, wearing an apologetic smile. “I had to drop Anwen at Mum’s. Then Mum decided that it was time for a ten minute lecture about how Anwen could be in more advanced academic tutoring programs for a child her age.” 

“Christ,” Ianto murmurs, eyebrows raising. He knows full well that Mary Cooper is a piece of work, has experienced her in person himself. “And so? What did you say in response?”

Gwen settles back against her chair, nose wrinkling. “I told Mum that I appreciated her suggestion and knew she genuinely cared, but that I could raise my own daughter perfectly well and fine without her help.” 

“Which she didn’t take well,” surmises Ianto, tapping his fingers against the scratched-up wood of the table.

She shakes her head. “Not at all, but I left before she could begin a more aggressive approach. Mum will likely be calling Rhys to complain later, but he can handle her. At least it’s not Brenda.” She grimaces briefly before she finally focuses her attention on Ianto. “Right then, have you ordered yet?”

“I was waiting for you,” he admits. 

Ianto stands and makes his way to the bar, returning roughly five minutes later with their respective brands of beer. 

“Service is getting faster,” Gwen notes casually, and he shrugs.

“I think it’s just not that busy tonight,” he replies. “It is a Sunday night. No one drinks on a Sunday night, not when they have work the next morning.”

“Well, no one but Torchwood,” she corrects, taking the first sip from her bottle, “because when the world could end at any time, we drink like there are no Sunday nights.” She winks at Ianto. “And fall in love that way too.”

“Gwen,” he sighs, and takes a long swig of his own beer. 

“When did you realize?” she asks. He relays the events of yesterday and watches her lips curl up into a bright smile. By the time he’s done, she’s grinning widely and fidgeting excitedly in her seat. “That was a date, Ianto! He asked you out on a date!”

“I know,” Ianto replies. “I know he did.”

“Are you serious about Javic?” When Ianto doesn’t reply: “What are you scared of, Ianto?” Her eyes soften, and she reaches over to place her hands over Ianto’s. Her skin is warm. “It’s been thirteen years since Lisa, Ianto. It’s been enough time.”

And maybe it’s the fact that she’s saying what’s been on his own mind or maybe it’s because she’s Gwen, the one he’s always been able to talk to, but Ianto finally admits, “It feels disrespectful to her memory.” Once he begins, the words do not stop spilling out of him. “I loved her, really  _ loved  _ her. I could have devoted my entire life to her. Losing her hurt like hell, and I didn’t think I could survive that.” A beat. “And I can’t imagine doing that again, falling in love with someone and risking losing them,  _ again. _ ”

For a brief moment, Gwen stares at him gently. “Oh, Ianto.” She rubs her thumb against his knuckles. “I never met Lisa Hallett, but I always thought that she must have been an extraordinary woman if she fell for you. I don’t think she would deny you a second chance at happiness, at love.” She hesitates. “If I were in Lisa’s place and you were Rhys, I would want you to move on.”

Heart lodged in his throat, he nods slowly, but he doesn’t feel convinced. His heart is beating uncontrollably. Carefully, he pulls his hand from Gwen’s grasp and takes a longer sip of his beer. “I’m still scared, Gwen.”

But scared of what, he doesn’t know. Scared of loving Javic? Scared of Javic loving him back? Scared of what he could have if it all works out?

Is he genuinely scared or is he just being a coward? He voices this to Gwen.

She shakes her head. “You’re not being a coward, Ianto,” she says. “It’s perfectly natural to be scared, whether of love or of rejection, it doesn’t matter.” She smiles reassuringly at him. “I’ll always be there for you, Ianto. No matter what. I’m your best mate.” She lifts her beer back to her lips and drinks. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Gwen,” he tells her, cheeks flushed, his entire body warm. 

She’s amazing, she is, Gwen Cooper. She was made for far more than Torchwood, with her wide eyes and immense trust and big heart and backbone of steel. 

“So,” she begins, toying with the wrapper around her beer bottle, “you’re going to tell him, right?”

“ _ Gwen, _ ” he protests, but she cocks a stern eyebrow at him.

“Ianto Jones, look me in the eye and tell me that you will tell Javic you love him,” she demands. Rolling his eyes, he nods.

“Yeah,” he says, finally, “I will.”

“Good.” And she nods. Then: “I reserve the right to string him up by his bollocks if he hurts you.”

“Tosh or Martha might beat you to that,” he murmurs petulantly. 

“Nah,” muses Gwen. “Crashing his vortex manipulator is more Tosh’s style. Martha might be more handy with a scalpel.”

Ianto shivers at that thought. “Either way, no one is going anywhere near Javic Thane’s bollocks.” No one but him, that is.

Gwen grins mischievously. “How big is his cock? Is it bigger than the dildo Owen once bought you on your birthday to replace ‘the stick up your arse?’”

He nearly spits out his final mouthful of beer at this but manages to swallow in time. “Oi! I’m not discussing that with you.”

“Hey,” she says. “I told you about Rhys’s cock.”

“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but  _ I never asked for that. _ ”

She snorts. “You wouldn’t survive a Friday night dinner with Tosh, Martha, and me.” She bats her eyelashes at him. “Ianto, please. At least tell me that he goes down on you.”

Sudden sparks lick up his spine as he unintentionally recollects countless instances of Javic on his knees for Ianto and smirking up at him. He suppresses the surge of lust he feels and focuses on rolling his beer bottle between his palms. “I’m not telling,” he says, and she rolls her eyes playfully. He shrugs. “Fine. He’s quite  _ large. _ And he goes down on me quite willingly.”

As Gwen’s mouth drops open in shock and she reaches over to swat him gently on the shoulder, he smirks.

Conversation shifts to when Rhys is coming back - tomorrow evening - and how Gwen’s been this recent week. He’d left behind a few frozen lasagnas, but luckily, in the decade that Ianto’s known her, Gwen’s cooking has improved immensely. She’s thinking of trying to make coq au vin for dinner tomorrow and invites him over, but Ianto refuses politely. He already has long-standing plans with Donna, who, he realizes abruptly, will also try to wheedle details about his sex life out of him. He shudders at this thought and asks about Anwen and August’s most recent playdate to distract himself.

After almost half an hour has passed, Gwen and Ianto have drunk another bottle of beer each. Ianto frowns at his bottle. “We really shouldn’t be drinking on empty stomachs,” he says.

“Let’s order food,” Gwen decides, her words slurring only slightly. “What do you want? Fish and chips, bangers and mash? Pie?”

Ianto doesn’t think he can eat fish and chips for a while without thinking of quarrelling with Javic over salt and vinegar on his chips. “A burger maybe?”

They order. While they wait for their orders to arrive, Ianto rests his head on his palm and gazes about the pub. He’s feeling looser and more relaxed than he’s felt in a while, and he suddenly realizes just how long it’s been since he’s gone out with Gwen, just the two of them. He has the unfortunate habit of getting wrapped up in work and his own life, which has only worsened slightly since he met Javic.

Finally, almost three hours since they first arrived at the pub, they stumble outside into the cool night air, much more sober and their stomachs full. They sit in Ianto’s Audi until he’s entirely sure that he’s ready to drive them both home; Gwen nestles into his side as he wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“Don’t close up your heart,” she tells him softly. “You deserve love. Take the chance. I don’t doubt that Javic will love you back. You’re an incredible man, Ianto.”

“I sure hope so,” Ianto murmurs back. “I sure hope so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto, pining idiots, take a major step forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything you've been waiting for comes nowwwwwww! This chapter was hellish to write, because I was like...can you boys take a step towards fucking? And Javic and Ianto said no and continued eating lasagna. If you remember me complaining about lasagna, it was this chapter. 
> 
> Thanks to Al and Annika for beta'ing and Kai for hearing me complain about lasagna. (Side note: I'm not really a fan of lasagna.) Enjoy!

“You’re late,” Javic drawls as Ianto strides through the front door of his flat, not even flinching at the unexpected voice that belongs to the man he hasn’t seen in a week. The Time Agent is sitting on Ianto’s couch, in front of Ianto’s telly, watching a show on the Netflix account that Ianto pays for. There’s a bowl of brightly-colored candies in his lap, the sight of which is enough to make Ianto’s teeth  _ ache. _ “Long day at work, darling?”

“Thought we didn’t do pet names,  _ cariad, _ ” Ianto parrots back as he hangs up his coat. “I see you had the courtesy to let yourself in again.”

Javic shrugs, twisting on the couch to glance over at Ianto. “I walked in the front door this time, though.”

“The front door that’s always locked?” Ianto raises an expectant eyebrow at Javic as he toes off his boots. He nudges them into place on the shoe rack with his foot before aligning them against his shiny pair of dress shoes. 

“The front door that was easily unlocked via my vortex manipulator,” Javic corrects. Then he tosses a handful of candies into his mouth and chews for a while before swallowing. He levels Ianto with another glance, this one thoughtful. “You know, for the director of a top-secret organization that works against extraterrestrial threats, you would think your flat would be a lot more secure.”

“It is,” Ianto says, just a tad affronted on Tosh’s behalf. She and her team personally designed all the security measures in his flat - and his office and the respective personal residences of the members of the Torchwood Institute board - themselves. “I’m just not expecting visits from fifty-first century Time Agents who don’t stick to our agreed schedules. I told you I was busy this week.”

Muting the telly, the other man places the bowl of candies aside on the couch and clambers up onto his knees to gaze directly at Ianto, who bites back a comment about how precariously the bowl is placed. “You didn’t contact me this Sunday. We had agreed at the beginning of the month that Sundays worked for you.”

“Yes, but we had also seen each other for a full day before,” Ianto points out.  _ We went on a bloody date together,  _ he doesn’t say. “I figured you’d seen enough of me by Sunday.”

“I’ll never see enough of you, Ianto Jones,” Javic says soberly, and Ianto’s heart nearly lodges in his throat. “Why would I not want to spend time with you? We’re friends.”

_ Are we? Are we friends? _ Ianto holds back from inquiring, because that’s never the type of question you want to ask the man you’re in love with.

Nor can you say:  _ The reason I cancelled our pre-existing plans to fuck you into oblivion on Sunday was because I was too busy getting blindingly drunk with my best friend over the fact that I’d fallen in love with you. _

Instead, Ianto makes for his kitchen and quickly washes his hands, nearly rubbing his skin raw in his haste to ignore Javic’s eyes burning into his back. He fills himself a glass of water and drains it before finally gathering the courage to face Javic. “I’m sorry,” he tells the other man after an awkward pause. “I’m sorry for cancelling our plans.” A moment later: “Work got incredibly busy.”

Strong eyebrows raise in disbelief, but then Javic shrugs, and Ianto breathes an inaudible sigh of relief that he’s gotten away with his subtle lie. “Alright, then. Just didn’t want to go around thinking that you didn’t want to see me anymore.” He smirks. “That would be unlikely considering the incredible sex we have.”

Is Ianto just imagining it or has he truly never noticed the way the skin around Javic’s eyes smooths out and his jaw unclenches, almost out of relief? Or the way that Javic’s intent gaze is bright and intrigued but not lustful? 

Ianto knows he’s not imagining the way Javic’s visits have become longer and more frequent or that their entanglements have become more than just physical. He’s cooked Javic dinner several times. Javic attempted to make him breakfast.

_ You’re not reading too much into it,  _ he reassures himself. _ You literally went on a date with the man. _

But is it too much for Ianto to imagine, to hope that these changes in their usual dynamic are signals that Javic has fallen for him just as he has fallen for Javic?

He can hear Gwen’s frustrated head in his voice now:  _ Ianto Jones. You’re never going to find out if you don’t ask, you idiot. _

“-Ianto?” Javic’s expression is slightly concerned when he peers at Ianto, and Ianto knows he’s not imagining this. “You okay?”

“Yeah?” Ianto asks. “I’m fine. Was just thinking about a presentation on smart car safety precautions I have to give my employees on Wednesday.” Javic’s expression smooths out again, and he snorts.

“I can think of many lectures and presentations the Time Agency would like to give me,” he says. “They’d likely start with  _ how not to sleep with your target _ or  _ how to not disrupt timelines. _ ” He looks speculative, lips twitching. “I really should have paid attention to the one about not getting stuck in time loops back in training.”

Ianto chooses not to comment on how Javic would have likely been fired within a month if he worked for Torchwood. He can’t imagine any universe where Javic works for him or for the Institute. Then he shudders as a new horror occurs to him - a universe where  _ he  _ works for Javic.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asks Javic. “I have leftovers for dinner, nothing fancy, but I could warm you some up.” It’s lasagna from Gwen, from when she finally got tired of eating Rhys’s frozen cooking.

“Or you could just warm me up yourself,” drawls Javic in reply, leering, eyes sparkling, and Ianto heaves another sigh. Still, he microwaves Javic a bowl full of lasagna as well as one for himself.

They sit at the kitchen island and sip glasses of wine, eating practically in silence. Since Ianto met Javic, the supplies on his bar cart have begun to dwindle. Ianto has a feeling he will have to start buying Javic liquor at Tesco’s soon enough. He rolls his eyes, taking a long drag of wine as Javic attacks his lasagna with gusto. He wonders if the lasagna - or the concept of Italian food - exists in the future, in the time that Javic’s from. 

(He asks. The answer is a shrug and a  _ dunno. _ Ianto tries not to smack his head against a wall.)

“How have you been?” Ianto asks conversationally, using the prongs of his fork to dig a poorly-disguised piece of broccoli from in between the layers of the pasta. Privately, he thinks Gwen offering him one of Rhys’s lasagnas was another ploy to get Ianto to eat his vegetables. Gwen’s clearly been spending too much time talking to Rhys. “What is the Time Agency up to?”

Javic’s eyes become briefly hazy as he blanches, which he quickly attempts to cover with a shrug and even more discourteous eating. But Ianto’s already noticed, and he files this reaction away for a later concern, peering at Javic more closely.

“Alright,” says Javic, stuffing his mouth with several bites of lasagna at once. “I was on Manspon III yesterday, sorting out a paradox. Man tried to travel back in time and killed his grandfather, but nearly erased himself from existence and tried to stop himself from travelling in time.” He swallows and sips his wine again. “Standard stuff.”

Ianto doesn’t think that sounds like standard stuff. He doesn’t think he’d make a very good Time Agent either. He finishes off his wine, thinking that despite his disregard for rules and propriety, Javic must make a good Time Agent. 

_ If only he’d care a bit more, _ Ianto thinks endearingly. “Paradoxes are the worst,” he says. “We have a whole team at Torchwood devoted to them alone.”

Balancing his fork on the tips of his fingers, Javic meets Ianto’s gaze with a slight smile. “Try a whole division, as the Time Agency has.”

“Well, the Time Agency has three thousand years on Torchwood,” Ianto says. The words lodged in his throat, the ones he’s been dancing around all evening, feel as thick and mellifluous as honey. He wants to say them. Christ, how he  _ wants.  _ To say the words, to Javic. 

How he  _ wants. _

Javic hums thoughtfully. “I didn’t know half the kinds of technology the Time Agency possesses even existed before I became a Time Agent,” he says. At Ianto’s interested look: “When I said that the Boeshane Peninsula was a tiny place, I meant it. The other Time Agent trainees acted like I was from a backwards colony. It grew frustrating…” He smirks. “So I proved them wrong the only way I could.”

Why does Ianto feel like that meant Javic did so by sleeping with them? He rolls his eyes. “Torchwood has mostly human employees,” he offers, “but we do have some who are not entirely human.” And before Javic can ask: “No, I haven’t slept with any of them, in case you were wondering.”

The Time Agent’s mouth closes with an audible sound, and he pouts childishly. Ianto’s fingers itch to slide through Javic’s soft, silky hair. He wants to kiss that pout away.

He thought he had it bad when it was Lisa he was stumbling behind. Yvonne used to have quite the chuckle at his pining expense, though not too unkindly. She would always follow it up with offers of booking a restaurant for his first date with Lisa if he were ever to actually ask. He agreed, for the second attempt at their first date, at least.

He misses Lisa’s soft eyes and the slightly sarcastic smile that always set off the fluttering of butterflies in his heart.

When Ianto returns his gaze to the man who currently holds his heart, Javic is just as distracted as he’d been moments previous.

“We’ve had some good times together, haven’t we?” he asks dreamily, eyes glazed over with lust. Javic’s expression, and the way he unconsciously bites his lower lip, causes blood to rush to Ianto’s cock, and Ianto feels just the tiniest bit dizzy.

“Yes,” Ianto agrees, just a tad too quickly in his own opinion, and Javic’s eyes darken. “Yes, we have.”

“You know,” Javic begins, “when I first came to this century, to this planet, I was just here looking for someone to fuck. I didn’t expect you, Ianto Jones.”

_ I didn’t expect you, Ianto Jones.  _ Ianto inhales sharply. “Was I a good surprise?” he asks coyly, laying his hands flat on the kitchen island.

“The best.” Javic glances down, all traces of lust gone from his expression. There is only sincerity shining in those clear blue eyes of his, almost how Ianto would expect the sun to reflect off the waves of the calm Boeshane ocean; Javic’s descriptions of his home have been so vivid and imbued with so much of himself, tinged with the slightest bit of the same sadness that Ianto has come to expect from the man. “You were the best surprise.” Then he corrects himself. “You  _ are  _ the best surprise. Better than what I could have asked for.” His brow creases. “Ever since I met you, everything has changed, in ways I couldn’t ha-”

“I love you,” Ianto says quietly, unintentionally cutting Javic off. The other man’s eyes are wide, lips parted, mid-sentence as he was. Ianto flushes.

“Sorry,” Javic says in bewilderment, “but did you just say you love me?” His voice sounds small, young,  _ frightened.  _ His eyes widen some more. He’s long since abandoned his fork on the kitchen island, Ianto notices. 

Ianto’s heart thumps dully in his chest, and he can feel every muscle in his body draw up and tense tight. 

He nods slowly, purposefully. Every second that sluggishly ticks away causes the lump in his throat to thicken, the flame burning in his chest to flicker out for just a moment before it returns. “Yes, I did,” he says finally, the words unsteady to his own ears as he says them, but Javic seemingly doesn’t notice. 

“Oh,” says Javic. “Oh, okay.” He ducks his head, gazing downwards, and says nothing more for the longest moment of Ianto’s life. Ianto can feel his hope begin to shrivel up and die.

“I’m sorry,” Ianto begins to say. “You didn’t ask for that.”  _ You didn’t need that. _

“I think I love you too,” Javic says suddenly, his head whipping up, and Ianto realizes that the other man’s eyes are burning, bright and clear, before his mind even processes what Javic has said.

“You-?”

“I said, I think I love you,” repeats Javic, his lips curling up into a wide,  _ happy  _ grin with a slight mischievous tilt. “You should get your hearing checked, old man.” He reaches out to grasp Ianto’s hand and laces their fingers together, holding their hands together to his heart. Through the thin cotton - real cotton, a bewildered Ianto notes, he can feel Javic’s heartbeat, a steady, reliable rhythm, a beautiful, reassuring sound. Ianto hopes it never ceases. “Can’t have you not hearing me when I’m confessing my feelings to you.”

Ianto rolls his eyes, unable to believe that  _ this  _ is the man he’s in love with - the man who loves him back, and doesn’t that make the blood flowing through his veins feel like liquid sunshine, airy and warm and golden and beautiful? “You’re ridiculous, Javic Thane.”

“Yes,” Javic replies, “but I’m the ridiculous Javic Thane you love.”

They both beam at each other like idiots. Ianto can already imagine waking up every day next to Javic. 

“I love you,” he says softly.

“Yeah, I know,” Javic says, winking.

“Yes, but I never want to stop saying that to you.”

“And I don’t want you to ever stop saying it,” admits Javic, his fingers tightening around Ianto’s. It feels as if he’s holding onto Ianto as a lifeline. 

Painfully, Ianto wonders how many have loved Javic as he deserves, but he knows the answer to that without having to ask - too few. And he also knows the answer to how many Javic has lost in this short, mortal life of his - too many.

Just like Ianto, Javic Thane is haunted by his own demons, demons that neither have discussed with the other. Ianto hopes to change that someday.

“You know what most people do after dramatic love confessions, Ianto Jones?” Javic murmurs seductively in Ianto’s ear, and Ianto realizes that while he was distracted, Javic had crept closer so that they are practically pressed against each other now. He finds that he doesn’t mind.

“Shag?” he asks, clearing his throat with a light cough.

Javic rolls his eyes. “I believe that it’s preferably called  _ making love, _ but yes. That is what most people do.” His hand worms itself free from Ianto’s and snakes down underneath the edge of the island to stroke the bulge in Ianto’s trousers that seems to be semi-permanent around Javic. Ianto bites his lip, suppressing a sudden hiss, and bucking his hips upwards against Javic’s hand. “That’s what we should do too.”

“This is the worst invitation to fuck that I’ve ever received,” Ianto notes and swallows down his groan as the pressure of Javic’s hand against his hardening cock increases.

“Too bad.” Javic reaches out and yanks Ianto in for a hard kiss, muffling any further protests. 

Said protests are forgotten, anyway, moments later when clothes are shed distractedly. Luckily, Ianto’s schedule is empty for the rest of the night, and even if it weren’t, Ianto would not care, not when he has Javic Thane in his arms and - not much later - in his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> See you next Friday! I hope you have a wonderful day! One chapter left until this arc ends!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javic and Ianto share a night - and the start of a lifetime - together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the final chapter of the second arc of sing me like a choir! We're two-thirds of the way through. This is one really emotional chapter besides the smut, so buckle in and prepare to feel things (hopefully, if I've done my job correctly.) 
> 
> Thanks to Al and Annika for once again beta-ing and all your wonderful comments for spurring me on. Enjoy!

They don’t sleep a wink the entire night. There is no outside world, just Javic Thane and Ianto Jones tangled together, the large bedroom their own little bubble universe. Torchwood, the Time Agency - none of it matters. Nothing else matters, to Ianto especially, except for Javic’s body moving against his as the other man frantically rides Ianto’s cock. 

His own cock is a desperate red and weeping, jerking up and down with his movements; he disregards it as he braces his hands on Ianto’s shoulders and bends down closer to kiss Ianto passionately, their tongues warm and slick against each other. Ianto’s eyes are wide and reverent as he gazes up at Javic.

“Fuck,” Ianto breathes. “ _ Fuck. I love you. _ ”

“Say it again,” Javic demands, panting harshly as he drops back down onto Ianto’s cock, arching his back to feel every sizable inch inside him. “Ianto. Please. I need to hear you  _ say it. _ ” His demand breaks off with a slight whine as Ianto bucks his hips slightly.

“I love you,” repeats Ianto, a wry smirk rivalling Javic’s tugging at his lips. He reaches steady hands to brace at Javic’s hips, holding him down, and Javic pouts. Luckily for him, Ianto’s sitting up, bracing his back against the headboard and pulling Javic closer into the cradle of his arms. They snog gently for a long, gorgeous moment, but eventually Javic, left impaled on Ianto’s cock, is squirming impatiently.

“I love you,” he whispers back before he wraps his legs around Ianto’s body and flips them over so that he can luxuriate against the soft cotton sheets of Ianto’s bed, gazing up at Ianto expectantly. “Now, fuck me.”

“Lazy bastard,” Ianto says affectionately, fisting a light hand in Javic’s hair. He settles more comfortably over Javic’s body, bracing himself against the bed. Then he pulls Javic’s head back to expose the graceful arc of the other man’s neck and licks a stripe up the long length of skin before trailing his lips back down, nibbling and sucking gently. Javic whines, pleading, and clenches down tightly.

Ianto hisses and pulls back slightly before thrusting deeply inside Javic, setting a quick, almost merciless pace that leaves Javic gaping and gasping. Javic still manages to tighten his legs around Ianto’s waist and lifts his back, changing the angle so that Ianto’s cock repeatedly strikes his prostate.

“Lazy bastard who you love,” Javic reminds him, his toes curling from this new angle and from the way Ianto wraps a hand slick with lube around his cock, beginning to stroke him in time to his thrusts. 

“Yes, yes,” Ianto grunts. “Lazy bastard whom I love.” He nips the skin above Javic’s collar bone, brushes a thumb against his nipples, and fists Javic’s cock tightly, all in succession, and the other man dissolves into whines for more. “Greedy bastard.”

“If you insist,” Javic gasps out. He wears a proud smirk, which Ianto leans down to kiss away, thrusting relentlessly against Javic’s prostate. He adds two more hickeys to the many already littering Javic’s shoulder and only pistons his hips harder. “You don’t -  _ ah, fuck  _ \- usually mind.  _ Fuck me. _ ”

“I’m already doing that,” Ianto says amusedly, and he grasps Javic’s knee, hoisting it higher to deepen the angle of his thrusts. 

“Close,” groans Javic, his head tossed back against the pillows, eyes slightly glazed over. Seems he’s too preoccupied to enjoy Ianto’s wordplay. Pity.

“What do you need?” Ianto asks, gently, dropping the hand on Javic’s cock to toy with his balls. He rubs the skin there gently, eyes feasting on Javic’s body, all languid and desperate with pleasure.

_ Christ, he loves this man. And Javic loves him back.  _

He couldn’t have asked for anything better.

“Just you,” whines Javic finally. “Just you.” And Ianto brings his hand back to Javic’s cock and resumes jerking him off. Not much sooner, Javic comes all over Ianto’s hand, his releasing spilling over the sheets, with Ianto’s name on his lips.

Ianto follows a moment later, thrusting deep inside Javic and pressing frantic kisses wherever his mouth will reach. His lips barely manage to form the shape of Javic’s name before he spills inside the condom.

Afterwards, collapsed together, their bodies slick with sweat and skin warm and sticky, wrapped in soft sheets and each other’s arms, the sun breaking out over the horizon and casting them in pale light that slowly transmutes into gold, they talk, and neither man has ever felt so  _ loved  _ or so  _ understood  _ before.

* * *

_ “I never thought I could fall in love again. Not after…” _

_ “Lisa, right? Your girlfriend?” A pause. “Sorry. You just mentioned her that day on the rooftop… I didn’t mean to bring her up.” _

_ “No, it’s fine. I’ve… I’ve just been thinking about her a lot recently. When I started realizing I was in love with you.” A sigh. “Can’t believe it’s been thirteen years. We were together and in love for less time than she’s been gone.” _

_ “... Tell me about her?” _

_ A long, long pause. Finally: “I met her on the day I first started at Torchwood. Torchwood One, I mean. In London. She met me in the plaza outside Torchwood Tower, in Canary Wharf, and I think I fell for her then and there. She later told me she thought I was cute but only really decided to give me a chance after tasting my coffee. We went on two disastrous dates. It took me several months to convince her to give me another chance. I have a feeling Yvonne played a hand in convincing Lisa as well, but she always denied it to me.” _

_ “You must have loved her.” _

_ “Immensely.” A beat. “Far more than I should have, to be honest. I’ve realized that in the years since she’s been gone. But when she was alive, when I was young, I would have given the world for her. Done anything for her. At all costs.” A beat. “I know it sounds hard to beli-” _

_ “It doesn’t.” A sharp inhale. “I… I saw her. I travelled back to 2006, and I saw her with you.” A long pause. “She was gorgeous. Kind eyes. Nice smile. You looked like the world shined only for her. You looked like you were in love.” _

_ “I was. I was also young and naive for all that I thought I was cynical and wise to the world. I learned otherwise soon enough.” _

or 

_ “I’ve never been in love, not really. Not like this before.” A pause. “Boeshane was always under the constant threat of invasion. When I was sixteen, I convinced my best friend to sign up for war. We became soldiers, child soldiers. We were far too young. I loved him.” _

_ “It didn’t end well, did it?” _

_ A cynical snort. “Do you really have to ask that?” A moment later: “We were captured together. They tortured me by torturing him. Late into the night, I would hear him screaming. From the nightmares or the torture, I could never tell. But for  _ hours.  _ They wanted me to tell them our secrets, but I never said anything. So they killed him. They killed him a day before I was rescued.” _

_ “Javic… It wasn’t your fault. You were a boy.” _

_ “No. It was. I have a history of letting down those who loved me. I’m the reason my dad died, the reason I lost my little brother Gray. Boeshane was invaded. We were running away. And I let go of his hand. And he was taken. And Mom couldn’t take it anymore. I destroyed our family.” A sharp inhale. “Loving me is a curse… You deserve better.” _

_ “Javic, look at me…  _ no,  _ look at me.” A soft kiss is exchanged. “You were  _ a boy.  _ In both instances. You were not at fault in any way. Anyone you’ve lost… your father, Gray, your mum, your best friend. They were tragedies, but they weren’t your fault. Not in the slightest.” _

_ “I don’t know if I can believe you.” _

_ “I will convince you, in time.” _

_ “Still, you deserve better than me. I’m a horrible man. The things I’ve done…” _

_ “As if I haven’t done just the same, or even worse, Javic Thane. I’m the head of an organization such as Torchwood. Before this, I worked as a PA to the former director of Torchwood. Yvonne… she cared, she really did, but she also abided by Great Britain first. I can’t even entirely remember what I did at her behest, and that terrifies me.” _

_ A jagged laugh. “Aren’t we a pair, then, Mr. Jones?”  _

or 

_ “I’m still looking for Gray.” _

_ “Oh?” _

_ “Any moment that I’m not working for the Time Agency or with you, I’m searching the universe for Gray. I’ve been doing it for  _ years,  _ ever since I lost him. I’m not giving up. I owe it to him.” _

_ “I think I would have done the same for Lisa. If she were still alive, if I’d found her with even the slightest pulse, I would have pulled her from the wreckage of Canary Wharf and done anything to save her.” _

_ “And where would we have been, then, Ianto? We never would have met. You would likely be living in a suburb, married to Lisa. Maybe even a few kids.” _

_ “No, no kids I don’t think. Not after everything we saw at Torchwood. There are some horrors that solidify some decisions for you. This is one of them.” _

_ “Still, married and living in a suburb. A dog at least. They’re small and cute. Furry.” A beat. “I want a dog. A corgi maybe. We had a breed similar on Boeshane. Korhis, we called them. So I want a corgi.” A longer beat. “And a life. I want a life… and happiness. With you.” _

_ “As do I.” _

* * *

Hours later, the sun is higher in the sky and brighter, its morning rays relentless as they sneak in through the gaps in Ianto’s partially-drawn curtains and cast the men still laced together on the bed in an almost unbearable golden glow. The pair are drawn inwards, towards each other, faces turned to shield themselves from the light. Ianto’s arm is crushed beneath Javic’s body, and there’s an itch on his nose that he’d really like to scratch, but he doesn’t want to lift his arms away from Javic.

He’s awake. So is Javic. They are slightly uncomfortable and almost overheating under the warmth of the sunlight but reluctant to part from each other’s sides. 

Soon they will have to, anyway. But they can wait, can cherish the brief moments they have together, before the night ends and real life creeps inside this intimate bubble and memory they have formed together in Ianto’s flat, before Ianto has to return to Torchwood and Javic to the fifty-first century and the Time Agency. 

Sadly, however, it seems like the day has other plans for them. The night has already ended.

Ianto’s smartphone rings with an irritating trill. Ianto lies there for a moment, completely still, half-covered by Javic. He wants to sweep the device up and drop it beneath his bed in the hopes of muffling the sound, but he knows that won’t work. Real life is calling. Quite literally.

“Don’t move,” Javic murmurs groggily into the pillow, clinging to Ianto as a koala would while the other man grasps blindly for his phone. He finally pulls it towards him and picks up the call, pulling his phone to his ear.

And immediately nearly flinches away when the voice that speaks is Donna Noble. Stern, loud, and  _ concerned.  _

“You’re  _ late! _ ” she chides. “You’re never late. Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine, Donna. I can have a day off,” Ianto says with a resigned sigh. “Or even a morning off. Don’t I deserve a lie-in? You and Gwen are always telling me to take a day to myself.”

“I suppose you could,” Donna says, sounding apologetic, “but some other day. There’s been a Weeping Angel spotted in Penarth.” Ianto groans loudly, drowning out her next words: “You’re needed.”

“I’ll be in within an hour,” Ianto promises. “Tops.” And he cuts the call before she can say anymore, adrenaline thrumming through his veins. He shrugs off a pouty Javic. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

Javic winds arms around Ianto’s neck and wrestles him back closer to kiss him softly, humming. “Stay with me?”

“It’s a Weeping Angel,” Ianto says flatly, knowing that Javic, the Time Agent, will understand instantly.

“Oh, fuck.” Javic jolts up against the headboard, eyes narrowed, and Ianto nods. “Be careful,” Javic instructs. “Be very, very careful. You don’t want to fuck with Weeping Angels. I’ve seen some very arrogant Time Agents underestimate them. I was part of the teams sent in to clean up the paradoxes they caused.”

“Trust me,” Ianto tells him, slowly sliding out of Javic’s grasp. Javic shucks off the sheets and stands as well, shivering as a gust of sudden air hits his very, very naked skin. Ianto casts a forlorn look over Javic’s well-muscled torso and the hints of softness at his stomach, all littered with colorful bruises and bites that match the shape of Ianto’s mouth. “I’m well-aware of the damage a Weeping Angel can cause.”

He’s seen enough, as the director of Torchwood, and heard Martha’s tales on top of that. He remembers the Doctor’s chilling video.

_ Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. _

He suppresses a sudden shiver.

“I should go as well,” admits Javic, and he’s reaching to the hardwood floor to pick up the trousers they’d discarded there last night. There’s a shirt half-draped over the armchair in the corner, and Javic walks over and slips it on, redoing the buttons. It’s a tiny bit too tight. (Later, Ianto will recall that the shirt, in fact, was his.) Smoothing down his hair, he saunters up to Ianto. His lips are twisted in that familiar smirk.

Ianto wraps his arms around Javic’s waist and pulls him close, pulling the length of the other man’s body against his. He wants to press Javic back into his blankets and cause the Time Agent to come undone with his mouth, just like he had last night.

But there’s not enough time. That’s something it seems they will never have enough of. 

“I’ll miss you,” Ianto tells him. “More than you could ever know.”

Javic’s smirk softens into a genuine smile. “I’ll be back. I always will. You’ll never be rid of me, Ianto Jones.” He ducks his head to mouth a kiss at the hollow of Ianto’s throat. Ianto cards a gentle hand through Javic’s hair before pulling the other man upright.

“Go,” he orders with a tender smile, “before I pull you back into my bed and have my way with you.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Javic says, but he still raises a hand to his vortex manipulator, already thumbing in coordinates. “I’ll be back. Soon enough.”

And Ianto believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik). I tweet and reblog mostly Torchwood with occasionally amusing commentary on nonsense. Please come talk to me and tell me if/how much you like my fic or like ask me about it on tumblr; all my schoolwork has become remote now, and I have limited social interaction.
> 
> Remember when I said there'd be no breaks between the second and third arcs? I lied. We'll be taking a two-week hiatus so I can try and get a headstart on finishing the chapters for this arc.


End file.
